


Fireside sketch: Cassowaries

by GroovyKat



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:08:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26598091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GroovyKat/pseuds/GroovyKat
Summary: Dimension Hopping Rose stumbles onto a planet that has been overrun with mutant Cassowaries.   There, she encounters the Doctor, but not quite the one she's looking for.
Relationships: Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 7
Kudos: 78





	Fireside sketch: Cassowaries

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my evening Discord Fireside Sketches writing. This is an entire fic live-written over the course of a few evenings on my iPhone for my friends at Discord, while enjoying a beverage and siting beside my firepit. Because of a live audience, there are no edits, no changes can be made... this is written as it goes and has to floooooooow. One must think on their feet for this... Quite fun to do, really.
> 
> The peeps at Discord had very specific criteria for me to meet on this one: Dimension Hoping Rose meets Nine. Another Doctor must show up. The evil bad guy aliens must be Cassowaries (because ... scary)... I believe I covered it all off well enough.
> 
> Note: William and Julia are snaffled characters from the Canadian show Murdoch Mysteries, which I had just finished watching when I sat by the fire. I included them, because I quite like them as characters... This is not a Murdoch Mysteries crossover, but I did steal two characters for this.
> 
> I very much hope that you enjoy. My supreme thanks to The_Plot_Thinens for being so dedicated in transcribing my fireside chats as I progress along each evening. They are amazing and I can't thank them enough!!

~~oooOOOooo~~

The effects upon her body from parallel to parallel wasn’t always so easily predicted. There were times that is was as simple as striding through an open doorway. Other times it was having to kick and shoulder her way through the door .... then there were other times when the name of her dimension hopping device was so adequately named - some parallel universes sucked her tiny little body across the vortex that it was like being shot from a cannon...

...and this was one of those times.

Rose felt the pull of the waiting dimension almost immediately after she palmed the yellow button and took the forward strides toward the blue portal that opened up for her. She didn’t have the chance to turn and wave to her team manning monitors and computer consoles before the invisible tendrils of the universe had her inside their clutches. She arched her body backward against the force and grit her teeth in preparation for the violent exit she just knew was waiting for her on the other side.

She just hoped that when she was catapulted past the void, that nothing particularly dangerous was waiting for her ....

...God, did she really just make that wish?

The force of the void snarling into her ear and slamming hard against her body was much more violent and aggressive than usual. Voices of those trapped inside the void sang and snarled in a horror-movie manner. Spooky children’s voices that sounded far too much like an adult voice actor trying to sound eerie and spooky sang old nursery rhymes into her ear and across her mind. And not the pleasant sort. These were songs filled with their original racist phrasing’s filled with disgust, hatred, and warning. Lyrics that made her sick to her stomach. She closed in on herself and covered her ears, screaming out into the nothingness that surrounded her for them to stop. She cried out at the laughter in her ears, and the high-pitched giggling inside her mind.

“Just Stop!” She ordered hard. “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

And to her great surprise, the voices and the laughter did just that. Rushing winds calmed to a gentle breeze. Haunted nursery rhymes shifted to the chirping songs of birds. Darkness shifted to warm light against her eye lids.

The landscape seemed so serene around her that she was very reluctant to open her eyes and double check.

“Young lady?” A soft, caring, male voice asked worriedly. “Are you not well?”

Rose’s taut posture relaxed only slightly; just enough that she could feign being perfectly fine, yet rigid enough to fight if it became necessary to do so. She dropped her hands from her ears and slowly opened her eyes.

The man that stood a very respectful few metres from where she was didn’t immediately appear to be of any threat. He was dressed in a three piece suit of black, with a white shirt, black tie, and a matching brimmed hat that sat tightly on his head. He had one hand fisted against his hip, the other held up a rather basic - and very turn of the century - push bike. He wore a silver badge on his lapel, which likely indicated he was a member of the constabulary force.

She bit at her lip and lifted her eyes to his face, which was admittedly quite handsome in an older-guy kind of way. Dark brown eyes that were quite obviously analytical more so than judgmental, with lashes so dark he may as well have been wearing eye makeup.

“Again,” he started with the softness in his voice hardening just slightly. “I must ask if you are alright.”

“Ehm, yeah,” she blustered out with a forced smile. “Course I am. Perfectly alright, me. Just ....”. She looked around her with a light frown. “Just not quite sure where I am right now.”

“Have you been harmed?” He questioned curiously. “Taken from your home unwillingly, perhaps?”

She offered a curious look of her own. “Why would you ask that?”

“A woman, walking unescorted,” he answered. He then made a pointed effort to look at her clothing. “Dressed in a manner I suspect is more appropriate for comfort within your own home.”

She looked down at herself. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

His brows lifted. “Woman do not usually leave the house in trousers, and certainly not with the ... ehm ....” he reddened just slightly. “That are well fitted enough that they display your form so readily.”

Unescorted women, women not wearing trousers? Hell, just when did she land herself this time?

Rose bit at her lip and tried to think quickly. Unfortunately, her head was still swimming from the voices within the void, and there was an additional presence lingering inside her mind that was quite effectively taking away her ability to speak. All she could manage was a wince and a light moan in reply.

He let his bike fall off to one side and quickly approached her. Concern was etched deeply into his features. “Oh dear. It does appear that you are not as well as you want me to believe you are.”

Rose wanted to take a step backward from him, but instead fell into a light slouch of her shoulders to look up at him with tiredness. “I’ve had a bit of a journey,” she said after a moment.

“Clearly not a pleasant one,” he said shortly with a firm nod of his head. “Which does seem to be a rather common thing today.”

“Meaning?”

“You are not the first stranger in unusual clothing to end up here today.” He looked to want to support her with an arm but held himself back. “I’m William,” he introduced kindly. “A detective with the local constabulary services here. I can be trusted.”

“I usually find when someone says that, they can’t,” she said with clear suspicion.

“I am very sorry to hear that.” He gestures toward his bike but kept his eyes on her. “If you would be willing to accompany me, then I can take you to whom I believe may be your travelling companion.”

“I’m not travelling with anyone,” she answered warily.

“Then you are unsafe,” he offered. “And I will insist that you accompany me anyway.” He looked at her arm, where her jacket had been ripped. He could see blood from a scrape underneath. “My wife is a doctor, she will tend to your injury.”

Rose bit at her lip as she contemplated this fellow and his gentle insistence that she accompany him elsewhere. She didn’t know how long it would be until her dimension cannon was ready for a return trip, so she may as well take in the sights, so to speak.

Curiosity toward the identity of their other stranger was definitely a driving force to follow this William fellow.

And he really did seem to be a trustworthy sort.... if first impressions were anything to go by.... which they rarely were.

“Sure,” she said after a moment. “I - I’ll come with. But I warn you: if you try anything, I know how to defend myself, yeah?”

He appeared slightly confused by her words but nodded anyway. “Yes. I am quite sure that you are.” He walked to his bike and crouched to retrieve his bike. “I assure you that I mean no harm.”

“Best you don’t, yeah,” she drawled. She scooped her hair behind her ear and looked around at the greenery that surrounded them. Not quite farmland, but very open field. It was quite beautiful, if very humid.

“So. This might be a stupid question,” she ventured as he walked beside her, putting his bike in between them if only to maintain appropriate distance and to assure her he me t her no harm. “But where am I?”

“Toronto,” he answered with a smile.

“Earth.” She muttered quietly with a nod of her head. She said her next word loud enough for him to hear. “Canada?”

He frowned at her question. “Kan-a-da?” He repeated slowly. He then shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ve never heard the name.”

She pursed her lips and exhaled through her pucker. Okay. Not Earth, then.... “Sorry,” she muttered. “My mistake.”

He hummed but said nothing. His eyes were focused on their path ahead.

“This other person,” she said quietly. “Does he have a name?”

William shook his head. “Not that we could get from him before he passed out. “ He kept his eyes forward. “All we do know of him is that he is a doctor.”  
  
Doctor? That word swirled inside her head and settled itself right between her eyes. Had she really managed to land where the Doctor was?

Surely not. After so many painful leaps across the void, had she _finally_ found him?

William heard the hitch inside her breath and took his eyes from the path ahead to look toward her. “Do you think you may know who this man is?”

She swallowed down her rising hope. “Depends,” she answered carefully. “Was he wearin’ a pinstriped suit with runners? His hair all...”. She lifted her hands to motion scrubbing her hair. “All messy and sticking up?”

The hope that was in William’s eyes faltered quickly. He looked back ahead of him. “No. That doesn’t describe him at all, I’m afraid.”

Rose looked upward, deflation from the removal of hope quite clear in her posture. “Then, no. He’s not the one I’m looking for.”

William licked at his lip and nodded. “So, you are missing a companion, then. I thought as much.”

“Not really a travelling companion,” she admitted. “More a lost friend.”

“I am sorry to hear that.” He drew in a breath. “I can assist you in looking for your friend,” he offered. “If he is somewhere in Toronto, I am sure I can find him.”

Rose sniffed deeply and lifted her eyes upward, her eyes burning with unshed tears. “I really don’t know that you can. It’s been years since I last saw him. I don’t think he’s here.”

“Long lost love?”

Rose smiled. “Yeah,” she drawled. “I guess you could say that. He.... he’s very special to me.” She sniffed in hard and gave him a smile. “This stranger of yours. What does he look like?”

“He wears odd clothing, much like you do,” he answered. “Black trousers and footwear of the likes I’ve never seen. A jacket made of black leather....”

She stopped him in place with her hand on his arm. “Short cropped hair,” she asked. She then swallowed. “Big ears, face set in a permanent scowl? Might’ve said something along the lines of you lot being apes?”

William’s mouth stretched into a small smile. “It would seem that your friend has changed his appearance since you last saw each other. That describes him quite well.”

“Yeah,” she half whimpered. “Yeah, I think I do.”

“And so, his name?”

“Doctor,” she answers with a brightening smile. “The Doctor.”

“Doctor is a title,” he corrected her. “Not a name.”

“With him,” she answered with a laugh. “It’s a name.”

The conversation between Rose and William tapered off toward only mild pleasantries after he’d confirmed that he knew the whereabouts of the Doctor. William did seem somewhat distracted as they walked, with eyes more intent on scanning their surroundings rather than politely looking toward her as they conversed. This was fine by Rose, of course. She had a million thoughts swirling within her own mind that offered her just as much distraction.

The shifting sands of something within her mind was unusual, and perhaps a little alarming. She had grown used to mild white noise inside her head since the day she’d absorbed the very heart of the TARDIS. The ship’s gentle song was always in the very rear of her mind like a gentle sound of reassurance and affection. Always present, but never overwhelming nor a nuisance. Oftentimes it was such a comfort, and so softly constant that she barely even felt her…

…Once that song was gone from her mind, unable to penetrate the walls that separated the universes, she certainly felt the loss. It took months for the emptiness inside her mind to fill again with useless, pointless slivers of redundant information and unimportant surface memories. It was a backfill that would never be solidly tamped down. The soils of that fill would easily be eroded away with a good wash of decent telepathic contact … if only she was ever lucky enough to find a mind willing to connect again with hers.

Correction: A mind willing to connect with hers as much as she wished to connect with them. Now was not the time to invite just anyone in.

She looked downward as she walked beside this tireless stranger to hide the wince of discomfort she could feel inside her mind. It was an odd sensation for sure. Back when she had met the Doctor, he had almost gloated to her that he could feel the turn of the Earth spinning at a thousand miles an hour. At the time she thought he was just being an arrogant arse, over-stating his brilliance to make himself look, well, impressive.

But walking now alongside a handsome stranger on a planet both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, she could quite honestly say that she felt the same shift and swirl of the ground beneath her feet as the planet she walked upon tumbled and spun along its path. She held a crease in her expression as she looked upward to the sky and determined that they were hurtling around a sun at least seventy four thousand miles an hour, much like they’d been slung from a sling-shot from the other side of the solar system. The rush was such that she felt the planet itself might come to an abrupt halt at some point, then hover a teetering shake of unsureness before it flung back in the opposite direction.

She shuddered to consider just what it might do to a planet for that to happen to it.

Best not to.

Still. These somewhat enhanced senses of hers were quite alarming. With each jump through the void, they only grew more heightened, oftentimes confusing her so much that she’d step straight into a pile of steaming dog shit trouble before she’d regained her senses.

Enhanced senses, much slower reaction time. Ugh.

“We’re here,” William said after a moment as they arrived at rather beautiful old building. “If you’ll follow me.” He walked his bike toward what looked like a beautifully elaborate marble and stone grand staircase that stretched up toward a deep patio a good three metres above them. He leaned his bike against the railing. “Your friend is in here.”

Rose blinked to wide eyes at the magnificent looking red-bricked building. No part of it screamed hospital to her. “Wow. This’s beautiful,” she gushed unapologetically. “Is this your home?”

His brows fell into a frown and he shook his head. “No,” he answered slowly. “This is the hospital.” He held open his arm to invite her to walk up the stairs ahead of him. “Please. If you will.”

“Oh yes,” she blurted out. “Yes, of course. Sorry.” She screwed up her face just slightly with light embarrassment as she walked up the stairs. She tried not to notice the looks of disapproval from the other woman she passed on her way up. She inhaled at the clicking of tongues and the gasps of judgment, but made no outward reaction to it. She’d grown up on the Estates, she was pretty used to it.

The landing at the top of the stairs was a magnificent platform of aromatic oak panelled flooring and summer flowers wrapped like ivy around the railing. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. Aromatic flowers and woods, mixed with brilliant perfumes that were strong to the point of oversaturation, which led her toward one rather glaring realisation: It was a deliberate effort made to mask scents that might not be anywhere near as pleasant.

Hospitals had morgues. That meant there was death and infection within this building. Judging by the obvious lack of technology, there likely weren’t fridges inside to preserve the dead until they could be buried. This looked to be the middle of summer.

She looked at the doors of the hospital now wondering if she actually wanted to step inside at all.

“This way, please,” William encouraged her in a gentile manner. “I’ll take you to your friend. Perhaps you can give us a little more explanation to how he ended up here.” He swallowed. “And how it was you were both separated.”

“That’s a longer story than I want to tell,” Rose muttered through a gaped mouth as she looked up to the ceiling and watched the decorated plaster tiles pass by overhead. 

“I’m sorry?” he questioned with a wide look in his eye.

She dropped her chin quickly and looked to him with a smile. “It was very traumatic,” she said with a decent attempt to appear distressed. “And not something I wish to relive if you don’t mind.”

“Was a crime committed?”

“Only against my heart,” she answered with a sigh. “A broken heart, that’s all.”

“If you are sure.” He pushed his hand on a door and stood to the side to let her enter first. “Through here.”

Rose gave him a smile and walked into what was an open and sparsely furnished hospital ward. There only had to be four beds in a room big enough for at least quadruple that. There wasn’t a single beep of a monitor, or a whoosh from a machine. It was completely silent save the soft breathing of a lone occupant in one of the beds and the song of birds through the window. Rose looked to the bed and her hands flew to cover her mouth. “Doctor!” she gasped out as she quickly jogged to his bedside. She kept her hands over her mouth as she looked down and along the bed, which appeared to be little more than a foam mattress set atop a rickety old frame.

The most curious thing she noted was the multitude of blankets that had been placed over him. He had been tucked in very tightly inside a cocoon of what looked to be scratchy grey wool blankets numbering close to a dozen. There was a white bandage wrapped across his forehead that was yellowing at his brow line from sweat. The underneath of his eyes were dotted with small beads of the same. He looked completely overheated and uncomfortable.

Rose immediately moved to pull down blankets and give him at least a small bit of chill to cool off.

A breathy voice of shock and even annoyance flew in from the doorway. “Who are you, and what do you think you’re doing?” Rose didn’t bother to look over her shoulder at the woman. She was more concerned with providing the Doctor with a little bit of relief against the heat.

“William,” the voice continued in a soft voice that lacked any real authority in it. “Who is this woman.”

“Julia,” he urged calmly. “It’s alright. This young lady is a friend of his.”

“Well friend or not,” Julia huffed lightly. “That does not give her the right to come in here and start undoing our efforts at treating his hypothermia.”

“He’s not hypothermic,” Rose said over her shoulder as she pulled down yet another layer of blankets.

“I am afraid that he is,” Julia argued in a soft breathy voice. “Quite dangerously so. When he was brought in, his body temperature was low. Quite low. The lowest I’ve ever seen on a person outside of death.” She walked to beside Rose, standing at her side to look at the Doctor’s pale face. “We haven’t been able to increase his temperature in days.”

Rose used the pads of her fingers to wipe the sweat from underneath his eyes. She showed her fingers to Julia. “He’s sweating,” she advised her. “His temperature isn’t too low; it’s getting too high.”

“But that’s impossible,” she argued lightly. “I only checked on him ten minutes ago. He wasn’t even 64 degrees.”

“If he was at 64,” Rose advised her as she finally had the pile of blankets down to a more acceptable double-layer, “then he’d be feverish.” She turned toward Julia. “You must be William’s wife?”

“I am,” she confirmed with a tightness across her brow. “And you are?”

“Rose,” she answered. “Rose Tyler.” She looked down at the Doctor and moved a hand to be able to draw her thumb across his cheek bone. “He and I. We’re friends. Good friends…”

“Companions,” William said softly toward his wife, implication inside his voice.

Julia’s head lifted with realisation. “I see.” She looked toward Rose. “While I appreciate your concern toward your … companion …”

“He’s not my companion,” Rose corrected her. “I’m his. Or at least I will be.”

“Still,” Julie said with a light huff. “We are trying to increase his temperature to bring him out from the coma he’s slipped into.” She drew in a breath. “If we can’t get his temperature higher, I’m afraid he might not survive.”

Rose shook her head. She swallowed. “The Doctor. He has this thing abut him. Ehm. A condition, where he does run at a lower temperature than most people.”

Julia’s brows lifted. “Pardon me?”

“His usual temperature is closer to 60 than it is 98.” She drew the backs of her knuckles against his brow. “If you get him up to what you think is normal, you’ll probably kill him.”

“Well, I’ve never heard of such a thing,” she gasped.

Rose gave the smallest of chuckles. “There’s a good chance you’ve never come across anyone quite like him.”

“You say he’s a Doctor,” William asked from behind both women. “Are you a nurse? Did you work with him?”

Rose could feel Julia’s questioning gaze. It wouldn’t have surprised her if the beautiful blonde woman tasked with the Doctor’s care has the same question forming inside her mind. She drew in a breath and shook her head. “Ehm. No,” she answered softly. “Not a nurse. Just someone who knows him well enough to make sure he doesn’t die....”

Julia shared a look with her husband, then looked back to Rose. Her voice was still soft and breathy, no ounce of frustration or annoyance at all. If anything she seemed intrigued.

“Perhaps you can explain another anomaly I detected when he first came in.”

Rose lifted her brows and looked toward her. “Dunno how much help I can be, exactly, but I can try.” She pressed her hands into the mattress in a lean. “What’s up?”

“When I listen for his heart, there does seem to be an echo,” she said with mild excitement in her tone. “At least my original diagnosis was an echo. However, it sounds quite like he has two hearts inside his chest instead of just the one.”

Rose’s eyes widened and her lips pursed put in front of her. Yes, she knew the answer to that, but should she tell them? With the Doctor being unconscious and unable to protect himself, would it lead to experimentation? Or would they run screaming about the devil?

Seemed to be the right kind of era to expect the latter...

Julia prodded gently. “Well?”

Rose knee she couldn’t exactly lie. Sure, these people looked like they lived back in the 1900’s, but who knew what technology that actually has available to them.

Technology or not, the best way to help the Doctor was to at least attempt a little bit of the truth ....

....modified though it may be.

“He was born with a genetic anomaly, or a mutation I suppose,” she began. “He has two hearts.”

“That is fascinating!” Julie remarked with breathy excitement in her voice. “I have read about such anomalies. It is very rare, much like a patient who have all of their organs on the opposite side.” She looked to William. “This is very exciting.”

“You’re not doing any experiments on him,” Rose warned sharply. “I won’t let you.”

Julia gasped with obvious offence. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Her eyes widened and she tilted one shoulder almost shyly. “But it would be wonderful research.”

“Well. When he wakes up, you can ask him, yeah?” She warned. “But until then, no. No research and no study. No takin’ blood am putting it under a microscope.”

Julia held up her hands. “I have no intention of doing anything without permission.”

“Good,” Rose said with a firm nod of her head. “Then we’ll get along.” She pulled her hair from her lip gloss and tucked it behind her ear. Her assertion shifted toward quiet concern. “So, how’d he end up in here, anyway?”

Julia looked toward William, the look in her eyes telling him to answer the question. He did so after a light clearing of his throat.

“It is unfortunate that your friend was out after curfew.” He shifted his eyes toward the Doctor. “Whether he was aware of the curfew remains to be seen, but people from this area know not to venture outside once the sun disappears over the horizon.”

“Why a curfew?” Rose queried worriedly. Curfews were rarely the sign of anything good. “Is it a prohibition thing or something?”

William looked at Julia with an expression of confused question, then looked back to Rose. “I don’t quite understand.”

“Not a ban on alcohol and dancing or anything fun, yeah?”

Julia have a light laugh. “Oh, dear me, no. For some, a few drinks are the only way to properly wind down after a long day.” She looked to William. “A small glass of brandy after a meal is something I very much look forward to at the end of a day.”

William smiled knowingly. The smile quickly fell, and he looked toward Rose. “Your question leads me to believe that you are not only from the area, but quite likely not from the country.”

“If my accent doesn’t give it away, yeah.”

He looked to Julia. “And means Rose has no place to stay tonight, either.” He looked back toward Rose. “Do you?”

“No,” she drawled our long and worried. “I guess pitching a tent is out?”

William lowered his head and gave it a light shake. “I can’t let you leave here, Miss Tyler. At least not this evening, and not until I am assured of your safety.”

“Why?” She asked. “What’s goin’ on?”

William removed his hat and held it in front of him as he flattened down his hair. “Several months ago, there was an incursion just outside of the Toronto city area. A large off world ship crash landed—“

“Hold on,” Rose interrupted quickly. She held up her hand and gave it a light shake. “You guys know about aliens?” At his perplexed expression she drew in a breath. “About beings from outer space?”

His brows lifted and he looked to Julia with surprise. He then turned his head back toward Rose. “Well of course we do,” he answered. “Interplanetary trading of goods and services is an essential part of our planet’s survival.”

“Indeed,” Julia agreed. “Don’t mistake our unwillingness to embrace the technologies of other worlds as not being familiar with them.” She blinked slowly. “We prefer to seek out advancements of our own. Develop our own technology.”

“I see,” Rose said slowly.

“For at least a century, we have had dealings with planets from within our system,” William continued gently. “Without any aggression or deliberate incursions against our people.”

“Until recently, that is,” Julia said with a sigh. “When the Cassowarian people crash landed outside of our city limits.”

“I’m sorry?” Rose asked with wide eyes. “Did you say Cassowaries?”

“Violent brutes,” Julia scoffed with disgust. She rolled her eyes at her husband’s gentle warning of her name and a request for her to please not speak that way. “No, William, I will not change my words to anything less that disgust and disdain. Too many people have been brought into this hospital because of them. Too many injuries, loss of limbs, and death at the hands of those ... those ... cretins!”

Rose looked toward the Doctor and the light bruising she could see on his collarbone. “And the Doctor. He was attacked by one of these?”

“We believe so,” Julia said gently. “His injuries are consistent with a cassowary attack.”

Rose’s mind couldn’t help but swing toward a cassowary from earth. She’d read some pretty scary stories about them when she was growing up. It was one of the multitude of reasons .... one of oh so many reasons ... that she vowed never to visit Australia.

William let out a long sigh. “They tend to move in the darkness, during the night, which is why curfews were imposed across the city.” He shuddered. “While these measures can’t be as enforced as we would like, particularly due to the reluctance of our own constabulary to patrol at night, it does seem to have lessened the number of attacks.”

Rose looked toward the Doctor. “Well. At least I know why you’re here,” she said with a sigh.

Julia looked toward her with a tilt in her head. “What do you mean, Miss Tyler?”

Rose touched her hand to his shoulder. “To help you,” she answered softly.

“Why do you say that?” William asked.

“Because that’s what he does,” she answered with awe in her voice. “The Doctor. He helps people.”

“Even when he’s not asked to help?”

A gruff and hoarse voice spoke quietly from the bed. “I’m my experience, it’s usually the ones who don’t ask that need the most help.”

Rose gasped and leaned down toward him. “Doctor? Doctor, are you awake? It ... it’s me, Rose.”

His blue eyes fluttered open, Blinking in the bright sunlight of the room. His eyes moved toward her and dropped into a confused frown.

“Rose?” He croaked out through a dry throat. “What are you doing here?”

“Hello, Doctor,” she answered lightly, ignoring his question to stroke her fingers lightly along his brow. She pulled back her hand when he flinched at her touch. “Doctor?”

“I’m not playin’,” he growled. “What are you doing here. And how?”

“You an me,” she answered with confusion. “We travel together.”

“No, we don’t,” he corrected darkly.

“Yes, we do,” she half pleaded. “You an’ me. In the TARDIS.”

“No we don’t,” he corrected again. “Rose, you said no. I asked you to join me in the TARDIS, and you said no. Preferred to play mother to your whimpering man-child of a boyfriend, didn’t you?”

“Oh no,” she breathed out with a wince. She’d certainly found the Doctor, but she’d found him far, far too early.

The rather suspicious look in his eyes softened just slightly. Unsure if that softening was him still being hurt and tired, Rose but at her lip unsurely. Before she could speak, however, he held up his hand.

“Never mind,” he gruffed out. “We obviously meet up again later and you come to your senses and decide to come aboard.”

“Something like that,” she said softly.

He saw the indecision, and even light disappointment in her eyes ... eyes considerably older than they were when he had left her behind on a dirty London Street. With a grunt, he pushed himself up to sit.

“Oh, please be careful,” Julia rushed out in her typical breathy manner. “You have been unconscious for quite a long time...”

“About four days, seven hours, and fifteen minutes, give or take,” he muttered with a lift of his hand to his brow. “Blimey, must’ve been taken out good to be out for that long and not regenerate.” His eyes shifted toward Rose to test her reaction to that word. She didn’t seem to be surprised at all, which was interesting.

Julia, on the other hand, made a slight sound of curiosity. “Regenerate?” She queried. “And what does that entail?”

“A trick of his species,” Rose answered softly, not so concerned about that reveal now that she knew that were accustomed to aliens. “When they’re about to die....”

“Irrelevant,” the Doctor barked out quickly. “In this instance anyway.” He looked to Rose. “Although I am intrigued about how you know about it.”

“Seen it happen,” she said with a shrug.

He nodded slowly, not missing the fact that she was not exactly standing at his elder self’s side right now. Quite likely they separated because of the cellular explosion of regeneration. He had to admit, that smarted a little.

He looked toward the pretty blonde doctor and gave her a smile. “I take it you did this?” He pointed to his bandage. “Not too tight, not too loose.”

“Well I should hope so,” she said with a smile.

William cleated his throat gently to remind everyone that he was there. He waited until eyes fell on him to speak.

“We should make introductions,” he said politely. “I have a few questions for you, and it would be better that we are aquatinted at least with names.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor drawled through a yawn he hid behind the back of his hand. “Might be a good idea, though my ability to remember might be somewhat questionable.”

“Rude,” Rose chided in what was obviously a well practiced manner.

He gave a one-sided smirk in response. “I’m the Doctor. Not necessarily _a_ doctor, but definitely _the_ Doctor.” He gestured toward Rose. “And this rather feisty and willin’ to tell me off young lady is Rose.”

“We have been acquainted,” William remarked. “Thank you.”

“Right,” the Doctor said with a shrug as he lifted his hand again and this time pushed the bandage up and off his head with his thumb. “So, you just wanted my name, then? Noting else. Just my name, which I have no doubt was already given to you by Rose.” He snorted and spoke blandly. “Fantastic line of questioning that yields so much information…”

“Again.” Rose said with a sigh. “Rude. And even for you that’s stepping it up in the rudeness department.”

“In case you didn’t notice, Rose,” he half snarled. “I’ve been in a healing coma for more than four days. I’ve got a headache the size of mount Perdition, and a companion who seems to know much more about me than I know about her.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Which I find very discomfortin’.”

“Bein’ a time traveller, I doubt its the first time, yeah?”

There was a gasp, only this time it came from William, and not Julia. He looked at the Doctor with wide eyes of true fascination. “Time travel?” He queried.

“Oh, William,” Julia sighed with a smile. “This is not the first time we’ve heard stories about people travelling in time.” She shook her head. “Fictitious flights of fancy, all of them.”

“This is true,” William admitted. “Although you must admit, if the secrets of Time travel could be unlocked and harnessed....”

“Then you lot would probably mess about and destroy reality,” the Doctor huffed.

“Indeed,” Julia agreed with a smile. “I can’t see it being used for good as much as for financial gain.” She looked to her husband. “As we have already seen.” She huffed. “Money making spectacles to trick money out of people.”

“Stupid people,” the Doctor agreed. “With too much money willing to spend it all on junk science.”

“At least they believe in science,” Rose offered. “Many don’t.”

“Preaching to the choir,” the Doctor said with a sigh. He looked down at the scratchy, starched, cotton gown that covered his front and then looked back up at Julia. “Any chance I can get my jumper and trousers?”

William turned to his wife, a nod in his head. “Julia. Would you mind getting the Doctor his clothing? While we wait, I’ll ask him one questions.”

“Of course,” she answered softly with a nod in her head and a step backward. “Please excuse me. I won’t be a moment.” She offered her husband a look of caution and turned to walk out the room.

The Doctor looked first to Julia, then back to William. “Been married long?”

William smiled a small smirk. “Is it that obvious?”

“Not really,” the Doctor answered with a shrug. “Was just takin’ a shot in the dark. “. He turned on the mattress and hung his legs over the edge. The gown didn’t quite go past his knees, and so they were on their full, white, slightly knobbly display.

William scoffed and politely looked off to one side to offer him some dignity. Rose sighed and stepped forward to give a slight tug of the hem to pull it down as far as it would go. She lightly clicked her tongue. “Don’t scandalize them,” she warned with a smile.

“Actually,” he corrected with a smile. “You’re being the scandalous one.”

She uttered a groan and stepped backward. “He’s all yours,” she offered William with a roll in her eyes. “I might go find Julia. See if she needs my help.”

“She doesn’t,” William said firmly. “And if you don’t mind, I really would prefer that you stay here.”

“Where you can keep an eye on me,” she replied with a knowing lift in her shoulders. She pointed to a chair beside the Doctor’s bed. “I’ll just sit and be quiet, yeah?”

“Good luck with that,” the Doctor said with a smirk. “I’ve met your mother.”

Rose pulled a cellphone from her pocket and leaned back in the chair. She didn’t look at him, instead she concentrated on thinning through her phone. “And got propositioned if I remember it correctly.”

“You heard that?”

“You told me all about it...”

“Fantastic,” he drawled. He then looked to William. “So? What do you want to know?”

William looked between Rose and the Doctor with scrutinizing eyes. While there was definitely some form of friendly companionship between them, it was clear that there was more affection toward the Doctor than he seemed to share with her. Unrequited love, perhaps?

He felt it best not to press on that right now. He figured he’d start with the basics and move from there.

“To begin,” he said with soft firmness. “Where are you both from? It’s quite clear that you’re not from here.”

“Nope,” the Doctor answered with a small smirk. “Definitely not from around here.”

“I’m from Earth,” Rose offered with a smile. “21st Century. Place called London.”

William’s brows lifted. Curious that she felt the need to state what time she was from. “Earth,” he repeated slowly. “Can’t say I’ve heard of it.”

“It’s a pretty bit of rock floating near the edge of Mutter’s Spiral,” the Doctor murmured. “About 300 million light years ....”. He hummed in thought and looked to the window, where he could see the sun preparing for descent behind the mountains. “This time of day, west of here.”

William nodded slowly. “I see, and you?”

“Nowhere, really,” he said after an inhale. “My planet’s gone now. Destroyed in a pointless war.”

“I am very sorry to hear that.”

“Many aren’t,” he said with a sigh. “Least of all me. Bunch of pompous know it alls, the lot of them.”

Rose sighed. “Doctor, you don’t mean that.”

He sniffed and looked to one side. “Anyway. Moving on. What else do you want to know? What we had for breakfast, the last time I showered? What?”

Rose shook her head and gave William an apologetic look. “I’m sorry about him. Sometimes he can be ...”

“Don’t need you defendin’ me, Rose,” he huffed. “I’m sure the detective here has handled worse than my grumpy early morning ...” he looked outside and amended that. “Just out of bed self.”

“You’re usually a little nicer when you first wake up,” she said with a light smile. Her cheeks turned a light shade of pink at his light gasp of shock. She redirected her attention to William, trying to ignore the wide-eyed state from the Doctor. “I’m sorry, do continue.”

William’s brow was high, but his voice was calm. “I suspect you didn’t arrive here together,” he surmised.

Rose shook her head. “Ehm. No. We haven’t travelled together in a while.”

The Doctor leaned back on straightened arms. “And why’s that, then? Regeneration too much for you to handle? Had me drop you off back home?”

“Why would you think that?” She asked him flatly. “Because I’m a stupid ape that gets frightened off by a little Time Lord hocus locus?”

William’s brows flew up high. He couldn’t shield his gasp. “A Time Lord? But I thought your mind was myth.”

“Are right now, I s’pose,” he answered. “Last one, me.”

An odd sound which seemed to be a quiet half argument toward that whispered softly from Rose’s lips, but she wasn’t looking at him directly. Instead her focus was on William. “I came in from much further away than the Doctor thinks. Originally from Earth, yes, but spent the last few years ...” she sighed sadly. “A billion miles from where I wanted to be.”

The Doctor seemed far more interested in that than William. “And just where might that be?”

“Nowhere you’d know about,” she sighed. “At least not yet anyway.” She looked back to the detective. “How I ended up here is by accident, really.” She held up a small device that had a big yellow button on it. “My mode of transportation.”

The Doctor reached for it, but she pulled it away before he could get his hand on it. “Vortex manipulator?” He queried. “Where’d you her one of those? Bit advanced for your kind, isn’t it?”

“I made it, and no. Not a vortex manipulator.” She sighed. “It’s much more .... intricate than that.”

“Can I see it?” He held his hand out.

“No.”

“Why not?” His hand was still held out for it. “Best you let me take a look at it. Things like that, a simple error in your wiring and things can end up horribly wrong.”

“Again. No,” she answered firmly. “My toy, not yours.” She looked back to William. “Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot in the way of navigational control on this. I basically end up where I end up.”

“I want to see it,” the Doctor presses more firmly.

“I said no,” she growled with a downward slap of her fingers on his. “So stop asking.”

“I’ll demand it in a minute,” he warned. “Being the only one in the room who actually knows about these things, it’s for the best that I...”

“Ask, demand, order, I don’t care. You’re not getting it.” She tucked it in her pocket. “And considering I’m the one who designed and constructed it, the highest authority on knowledge of it is me, okay?”

“Not okay at all,” he seethed.

William held off asking to see the device for himself, despite being as desperately intrigued as the other man appeared to be. “So, you arrived purely by accident. I can believe that, based on how you were found.”

“Tumbleweed among the road,” she said with a laugh.

“Yes, quite.” He looked back to the Doctor, noting with amusement how his eyes were seared onto Rose’s pocket as though willing the travel device to leap out of her pocket and into his hand. He held onto his amusement. “And you, Doctor? What brings you here to Toronto?”

“Navigational blunder, wrong turn at Albuquerque kind’ve thing. You know how it is.” He eyes lifted to Rose’s. “I’d really appreciate it, Rose if you could allow me the chance to take a look over the travel device. Please.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Little hint, Doctor. When you’re aiming to be polite, don’t speak through your teeth. And the answer is still no. I don’t want you breaking it.”

“Break...?” He blistered out with clear affront. “I will have you know, Rose Tyler, that I happen to be a very experienced and brilliant...”

“Tinkerer,” she finished for him.

“I do not tinker, thank you.”

“Jiggery pokery then,” she said with a sigh. Her eyes fell back toward William, and she took a step backward to remain out of reach when the Doctor shifted forward on the mattress to get closer to her. “The Doctor can have a bit of trouble with his navigation of the TARDIS. Bless, he does try, but he so rarely gets to where he actually wants to go.”

“And how you know that for fact has me intrigued,” he said with a pinch in his eye. “How long did you travel with me?”

“Not nearly long enough, if I’m being honest,” she said with a sigh. “Now please, stop. You can’t push me for future information, you know that.” She swallowed. “Reapers, remember?”

“They’re not interested in whether or not I know a little bit ahead of where I am now,” he answered her with a light bit of concern. “And it terrifies me a little that you know about them.”

“Yeah. Got the T-shirt.”

“I am so sorry to hear that.” He gulped and the shook himself. “And besides. Reapers don’t much care if I know a little bit ahead of my time. I can also forget if necessary.”

“Can you?” She asked with surprise

“I can,” he assured her with a smile of mild victory. “So, your device?”

“Still not getting it,” she said flatly. “But I won’t be too guarded about anything else.”

“If you say so,” he drawled long. He would get that device one way or another before they were done here. He’d make sure of it. “So, where were you?” He asked. “That was a billion miles away from where you wanted to be?”

“On the other side of a dimensional wall,” she answered sadly. “Trapped, with no way back to you.” She drew in a breath. “That’s why I’m not with you anymore, Doctor. We got separated, and you couldn’t come for me.”

A look of heartbreak crossed his face. His voice fell to a whisper. “Tell me I tried,” he pleaded. “Tell me I didn’t just abandon you alone....”

“You burned up a sun to say goodbye,” she said sadly. “You didn’t abandon me. And I wasn’t alone.”

His eyes fell to her pocket. “And your device. It’s more than a Vortex manipulator. It’s dimensional, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “My only way to come back and find you.”

“Well you found me,” he gruffed and held out his hand. “So, hand it over and let me destroy it.”

“No,” she said again. “So, drop it, yeah? Enough.”

He stood up quickly, completely ignoring the fact that his naked backside was now on full display to anyone who might enter the room. “I’m not playin’ anymore,” he warned her. “You have no idea how dangerous something like that is. Rose, you could tear a hole through the very fabric of reality with that thing. And trust me, if you didn’t like the reapers, you certainly won’t like what happens then.”

“Got the t-shirt for that as well, Doctor,” she snapped. “Stop assuming I’m an idiot and have a bit of trust, yeah?”

“If you know me at all like you think you do...”

“Yeah,” she drawled softly. “I do. Better and more intimately than you think I do. So leave it, yeah.”

William had watched the exchange with fascination. He should have interrupted a long time ago, but something held him back. He finally took their silence to mean their conversation was done and cleared his throat softly to remind them he was there.

“So, the both of you arrived here simply by accident. You did not intend on visiting Toronto?”

“Clearly not,” the Doctor answered. He folded his arms across his chest., which only served to open the back of his gown wider to show perfectly white skin bordered by an off-white cotton gown. “But I’m thinkin’ that the both of us showed up at the right time. Guessin’ something is goin’ on around here you might need my help with?”

William frowned. “I don’t know that I’m entirely sure just what kind of help you can offer,” he said quietly. “We’ve had an entire constabulary, and an army unable to hold them back...”

“And by them, who do you mean?”

“It is really none of your concern,” William states firmly. “But I will recommend that if you have the means to leave the planet, that you do so.”

“Watch me blog a complaint to the internet,” the Doctor said flatly. “Don’t visit Toronto, they’re hardly welcoming....”

Rose sighed. She turned to the Doctor, keeping her voice low. “They’re in the middle of an alien invasion,” she advised him. “Some group known as the Cassowaries.”

His brows lifted then crashed over his eyes with mild confusion. “Sorry. For a moment I thought you said Cassowaries as in the bird. The Australian one.”

She nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I said,” she confirmed. “Their ship crash landed here a bit back and they’ve been overrun with ‘em. “. She puckered out her lip. “Wonder what they look like....”

“Probably like a Raptor wearing black and blue feathers,” the Doctor answered. “Far as I know, the only species named Cassowary are from your home planet.” He looked toward William. Are you being overrun by ... birds?”

William had the grace to look slightly embarrassed by that. He cleared his throat and looked down to the mattress. “They are rather large and terrifying creatures,” he said with a light linking in his cheeks. “And rather violent.”

“A bird,” he clarified slowly.

“A bird that took you out pretty good,” Rose reminded him. Put you in a healing coma for four days.”

His jaw dropped and his mouth rounded into a perfect circle. “Oh. Is that what happened? Really?”

“Yeah, imagine that,” Rose sang out. “A full army of Daleks couldn’t put a dent in ya, but an Aussie bird?”

His face fell into a dark scowl. “How do you know about the Daleks?” He snarled.

“Met them more than once,” she answered slowly. “Not a pleasant species, that lot.”

His breathing drew in deep and hard. “Are you telling me... are you suggesting that the Daleks survived? That they’re still out there?”

She winced a tight crease of her face, forgetting entirely that this Doctor was fresh from the war that cost him his entire planet ... a sacrifice to free the universe from the Daleks.

“Doctor,” she peeped out apologetically. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think.”

He staggered backward toward the bed, and when his rump hit the mattress he fell backward into a seat. He leaned forward and buried his face into his hands.

“For nothing,” he moaned out sadly. “I did it for nothing. My people. All of them gone, for nothing.”

It was instinct that drove her forward. Rose didn’t even think about her actions when she stepped forward and walked between his knees. She slid her hands around his cheeks, coaxing his hands from his face.

“It’s okay, Doctor,” she said softly. “Come here, yeah? I got you.”

His head lifted. There was a pinch in his eye that warned he was ready to huff and demand just what it was she thought she was doing, but as her thumbs brushed against his temples, his angry eyes widened with complete and utter shock. He lifted his hands to hold gently at her wrists.

“Rose?” He asked with a croak in his voice as he felt warmth fill his mind. “How are you doing that?”

There was a brief expression of confusion on her face, then a sudden look of realization. Very quickly she snapped her hands from his face and held them between her breasts. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry about that...”. She looked slightly pained. “I’ll just stand over here then,” she muttered with a tilt of her head toward the wall.

He was having nothing of that. Nothing at all. A warm mind had dared stroke alongside his, and while it was done without permission, right now he didn’t care. It had been far too long since he felt the soft song of another inside his mind. He snapped out his hands and curled his fingers around her wrists.

“Please?” He asked her. “You can’t back away from me now.”

“It’s really best that I do.”

“Best for the universe if you do,” he corrected her as he drew to a stand and stepped the half stride toward her that still separated them. “What’s started....”

“Nothing was started,” she corrected him. “Just a little tickle, that’s all.”

He grinned rather cheekily at that and hummed. “Yes, but isn’t that how things usually get started?”

This was over flirtatious even for his next body. Rose was fairly certain, then, that he was up to something. Before she could remark, however, there was a loud and scandalised sound from the doorway.

“Mr. Ehm. I mean Doctor!” Julia gasped out. “Your backside is on full view for the entire hallway to see!”

While Rose was embarrassed on his behalf, the Doctor certainly didn’t appear to be. He slowly turned toward William and to the door, leaving only Rose with a full view of a brilliantly white naked Time Lord behind. While the immediate urge was to turn away, she did have a slight peek and a smile.

“They my clothes?” He asked with a look toward the pile of clothing in her arms. At the tint of red in her face he rolled his eyes. “Come now, it’s just a bum. I’m sure you’ve seen plenty.”

William took immediate offence to that. “And just what are you implying?” He growled.

The Doctor passed him a tired look. “That your wife is a doctor, and so the chances are fairly high that she’s had to treat or inoculate more than one.” He held out his hand. “Now, can I get dressed and save what little dignity I have left?”

“Of course,” she blustered, offering William a slightly annoyed glance. “And yes, I have seen my share of backsides, most often during my time as a medical examiner...”

“A coroner?” The Doctor asked with obvious awe. “How fantastic for you, and in an age where women are still fighting for basic rights.” He looked to William as he pulled on a pair of boxer briefs underneath his gown. “You must be a proud man.”

“Indeed, I am,” he agreed. “Julia is quite remarkable.”

“I can see that,” he said with a smile as he shimmied into his jeans. He lifted the gown and held it in his teeth to look downward as he fastened his button and belt. “Wanted to be a doctor, myself, when I was studying at the academy, he said through teeth holding the hem of the gown. He then spit it out and pulled it off himself to pull on his jumper. “Not an approved pathway of study by the family, I’m afraid. Had to get into politics instead.” He spoke through his jumper as he pulled it over his head. “Have no mind for that, let me just say.”

“So, you aren’t a doctor?” William asked with a light frown. “But you call yourself one.”

“Different kind of doctor,” he said with a shrug. “Although I did study medicine in the 19th century on Earth. Didn’t exactly graduate - no university degrees for aliens. Bunch of....”

“And so on that note,” Rose chipped in with a smile. “Shall we go back to evil alien Australians?”

The Doctor didn’t pull his jacket on, instead he left it in a pile on the bed. He folded his arms across his chest. “They’re considered an endangered and almost extinct species by the time Earth has developed reliable space travel. So, I don’t imagine there being too many.”

“The word invasion kind’ve implies a lot of them,” Rose offered.

“I used the word incursion,” William corrected gently. “Which could indicate any number, really. But yes, there are more than enough for it to be considered an invasion.”

“Which means there really was no reason at all for you to correct me, yeah?” Rose asked with annoyance. “But sure, go ahead. Mansplain over me.”

He looked perplexed. “I really don’t know what that means.”

“Google it.”

“Nor do I understand _that_.”

“Okay. This. When you feel the need to pointlessly correct me and feel the need to do it because I’m a woman ... don’t, yeah?”

The Doctor chuckled. “Oh, you are a strong willed one, aren’t you?”

“Goes for you as well, ta,” she shot toward him.

He held up his hands. “No complaints from me on it. Don’t much like a screaming damsel in distress, me. Nice to know you can hold your own.”

She hummed at the cheeky smile he had on his face. That was another attempt at a flirt. She narrowed her eyes and pointed a finger at him with accusation. She petted her pocket. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to, Mister, so stop.”

He exhaled hard and looked upward. “Pay a girl a compliment ....”. He looked back at her. “If I really wanted to get my hands on it, Rose, I’d already have it.”

“How do you reckon that?” She challenged with a set in her jaw and a tilt in her his as she folded her arms across her chest.

“For me to know,” he answered with a tap at the side of his nose. Abruptly he let out a hard breath and clapped his hands together, giving them a firm wipe against the other before setting them on his hips. “Right. Enough friendly chit chat. Best we find these incursionists of yours so I can pluck a feather from their butts and send them home. How does that sound?”

William’s brows lifted. “You say that like it’s easy to do.”

“It probably will be.”

“So you have a plan, then?”

“Nope,” he answers with a beaming grin.

William frowned. “Then I will suppose that you’ve dealt with them before?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then how?” He looked to his wife with confusion then back to the Doctor. “How do you expect it to be so easy to do when you have no plan, and haven’t encountered them before?”

“Oh, they’re birds, Detective. How hard can it be?”

Rose dropped her head into her palm and let out a moan. “I really wish you hadn’t said that.”

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose swatted a hanging branch from in front of her face as she fled through a thick and unkempt forest. She didn’t check to see how close he was behind her before letting it go. She heard the slap of leaves on his jacket and the grunt of annoyance when it flicked back and struck him.

“They’re just birds,” she snarled out facetiously. “Easy peasy piece of cake.”

“I didn’t say it like that,” he growled in reply. “I merely asked how hard it could be.”

“Yeah, and did you get your answer?” She yelled as she vaulted over a fallen log and stumbled on landing.

He hooked an arm around her waist to keep her on her feet, then slid his hand toward her hand to clutch it in his. “Not all the answers, but the one to that particular question, yes I did.”

She made a grunt of displeasure and deepened that sound when her strides had her boot slam into a puddle of water from recent rains. She chose not to complain about that.

“Those things can’t be the Australian bird,” she remarked. “They’re a bit stronger looking and have two more arms than I’d expect them to.”

“Genetically modified,” he grunted in reply, launching over a puddle in front of him. “Disgusting. Just when I thought humans couldn’t sink any lower...”

“Oi!” She chided sharply. “How do you know it was humans that did it?”

“Let me see, earth species, indigenous to a very small part of one continent....”

“Doesn’t mean anything,” Rose argued. “Aliens have been landing and probing now for years. Could’ve been any one of them.”

He pulled her to a stop and pressed their backs up against a thick tree trunk. He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “If you think ... if you truly believe that an alien species would spend centuries and billions of dollars to perfect space travel only to travel to other planets to stick a probe up their...”

“I get it,” she interrupted with an equally harsh whisper. “No need to get crass.” She drew in deep breaths and struggled to swallow over a dry tongue.

Cautiously, she turned around the tree trunk, hoping to see if anything was behind them. “Do you think we lost them.”

“Rassilon,” he breathed out. “I hope so.” He clutched at her hand tightly drawing his thumb along her knuckle. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she panted. “Just peachy. Got thrown out of the void, had a multitude of very creepy kids voices in my head that will likely feature in my nightmares over the next lil’ while, bumped into grumpy you lying in a hospital bed. Got to see your naked bum, which is so blindingly white I reckon I might have some retinal damage from it, and now I’m being chased by mutant Australian Killer birds ... which really didn’t need any genetic modification to be lethal because ... _Australian_ ....”. She swallowed and nodded. “Yeah. Pretty average day where you’re concerned, really.”

“I have so many questions for you,” he said with a slightly concerned look. “So many.”

“Yeah, well they have to wait,” she warned him on a low voice. Looks like we might have company.”

His brows twitched curiously. He couldn’t hear anything to suggest that. But before he could remark on that, he heard the distant wailing of someone on the run.

“Ahhhh.” He drawled. “It appears that we might.” He tugged on her hand. “Best we don’t stick around, then.”

“No,” she gasped with a tug of her own. “What if he needs our help? We can’t leave him here!”

The wailing drew closer, quickly, and the Doctor determined that they probably wouldn’t outrun the individual anyway. “Fine,” he huffed. “But if he’s bringing any of those damn birds with him, then we run in the opposite direction and let them chase him.”

“My chivalrous hero,” she drawled. “So brave and selfless.”

His eyes narrowed almost playfully, then switched to a protective glare when a loud crack of twigs announced the arrival of the other man on the run. He opened his mouth to speak but found himself driven into silence when the man rounded the tree and slid to an uncoordinated stop in the mud. “Oh, thank the stars, I think I lost them.”

A mop of blonde curly hair bordered a large rounded face that was pink with exertion. He wore a multicoloured coat that looked like the tailor must have used the very last scraps of fabric he had in his shop to construct. His trousers were a glaring yellow with thin black stripes, and he wore a blue and white polka-dotted silk scarf around his throat. Portly in such a way to make him look far shorter than he was, he looked somewhat like a unicorn had farted him out, eaten him, then farted him out again.

Rose regarded him with eyes twinkling with amused fascination. “Well, hello,” she began with a genuine attempt to hide her smirk. “Nice night for it, yeah?”

The man looked first to her, and then to the man scowling at her side. His brow shifted high at him, then he slid his gaze toward Rose and offered a smile. “Well I dare say it is a good night for it.” He cleared his throat. “Whatever _it_ may be of course.”

She hummed. “For running away from mutant cassowary birds, of course,” she clarified with a smile. “Don’t know what else I’d be doing out here after dark with a strange brooding man at my side.”

“Well, there are options,” he ventured. “None of which shall be discussed in polite company of course.”

“Of course not,” she agreed. She held out her hand. “I’m Rose, by the way.”

He looked down at her hand for a moment, and then shuddered with realization. “Oh yes. You wish to make a greeting. Of course.” He took her hand and turned it flat down to lift her knuckles to his lips. The hand was quickly pulled away by the Doctor in leather.

The rainbow Doctor lifted his head with question, his lips still pursed in a pucker.

“Wrong era for that,” Nine muttered. He drew in a deep breath. “…Doctor.”

“Oh!” Six breathed out with pride as he stood tall and flicked open his jacket to hold onto his suspenders. “I see you’ve heard of me. Splendid.”

“ _Heard_ of you,” Nine drawled quietly along a breath. “You could say that.”

“Well, as I said,” Six said with a rather proud and proper voice to him. “Splendid. That certainly does mean that things should move rather swiftly from here, if I am not having to explain myself.”

Rose held up a hand like a student might in a classroom. “Ehm. Maybe not so much. I’m slightly ... well ... maybe largely out of the loop here.” She looked toward Nine and thumbed toward the other man. “You called him Doctor,” she half asked, half stated.

“Indeed, he did, Rose,” Six answered with a smile. “Because that’s who I am. The Doctor.”

Rose pressed her lips together in thought for a second. She then let out a breath, shrugged and said very simply. “Okay.”

Nine slid his eyes to her. “That’s all you have to say? okay?”

“Yep.”

He nodded slowly. Well. Rose certainly knew how to simply run with it and not carry on whining. It made him smile. “Well. Okay then.”

“Very okay,” she replied with a smile pulling at her lips. “Very, _very_ okay.”

Nine could see she was holding in a good chuckle and leaned down to her. “You’re close to breaking, I can see it.”

“Stop.”

“No, really,” he said low, watching his much younger self ignore them both to flick leaves from his shoulders. “Now I know referring both of us to Doctor might get a little confusing for you after a while. So let’s give him a name, shall we?”

She jabbed him in the belly with her elbow. “I don’t wanna be impolite, and laughing’ll be rude. So stop.”

“Now ordinarily unicorn might be apt, but typically a unicorn wears its horn on its head rather than firmly up his....”. He oomphed with another elbow strike to his gut. “A violent little thing, aren’t you?”

Rose winked. “Wait until you see my mum in a bad mood.”

“Your who?”

“I believe she said her mother,” Sox answered on her behalf. “And might I remark on the impropriety of a man being in the company of such a beautiful young woman after dark - before he’s had the opportunity to meet her parents.”

“You can drop the false pretences,” Rose said with a smile. “Not from this planet, or this timeline. Where I’m from, couples hook up, get pregnant, move in together before any of them meet any parents.” She thumbed to Nine. “And him? Well... he’s a bit unique.”

“I see,” Six replied. There was slight relief in his voice that he wasn’t now privy to a scandal, but also guardedness that they were aliens to this planet.

He looked to Rose. “Earth, I’d wager. Late 20th maybe?”

“Early 21st, London.”

“Oh, wonderful,” he sang out. “What a wonderful era that was. So many amazing technological advancements.”

“And the rise of the keyboard warrior,” she added with a shrug and a smile. “And Instagram. And cellphone zombies...”

Six frowned. “Sounds terribly ... well ... quite awful, really.” He then looked to Nine and gave him a quick up and down. “And what about you, my fine fellow? I don’t get a typical human vibe from you.”

“B’cause I’m not human,” he answered with a shrug. He rolled the long length of his back against the trunk to stretch his spine. “Come from a big orange rock in the centre of the Kasterborean constellation. Reckon you might have heard of it ....”

“Gallifrey,” he drawled in a reply filled with realization. “You’re a Time Lord.”

“That I am,” he answered with a cryptic smile.

“Doctor,” he ventured dryly. “Of course. And just which one of me are you, then? Seven, Eight?”

“Not far enough ahead to be completely obliterated of the shame of your disastrous fashion choices, Doctor.”

“Nine,” Rose answered for him. “He’s your ninth incarnation.”

Nine looked at her curiously. “And how do you know that, Rose?”

“You told me,” she said with a smile. “When you were in your tenth.”

“Well, that’s lovely,” Six remarked with a smile. “Another set of uncomfortable questions and explanations avoided.” He smiles at her. “Lovely to meet you, Rose. And might I suggest that we ... well ... that we run?”

Rose looked over her shoulder and saw the flash of black and blue through the trees. She nodded frantically and grabbed tightly at Nine’s hand. She gave it a good tug. “Yep! Running. It’s good. We should absolutely do it.”

“Then less talking, and more running!” Six ordered sharply.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The threesome burst out of the very edge of the forest and onto the city outskirts with a huff of breaths and the heavy pounding of feet. Six ran on his own, where Nine had a tourniquet tight grip on Rose’s hand.

Six turned in his stride to run backward and loo behind them. Hit breathing was hagged and rough. “Right. I believe we’ve lost them.”

“Don’t stop runnin’ just yet,” Nine demanded. “They’re a fast breed, that lot. One second of false security and they’ll be on us.”

Rose was lagging just slightly, exhaustion from a tiring day catching up to her. She could barely find an actual voice to speak, and instead only managed a hoarse sound. “But where do we run to, Doctor?”

“A valid question,” Six remarked. “Do we have a destination in mind?”

“TARDIS,” Nine answered sharply. “Just up a couple of blocks. We keep legging it, and we’ll be safe to discuss next steps.”

Rose let out a sigh as she felt the ship begin to hum and sing in her mind. “Oh darling,” she purred out. “I have missed you.”

“Missed who?” Nine asked through his teeth. “Can’t be either of us.”

“The TARDIS,” she panted out. Her smile brightened when she saw the blue box up ahead of them. She pulled her hand out of Nine’s and shot forward. She pulled her key from between her breasts and was at the door before either Doctor made it there. She needn’t have bothered with the key, the doors flew open eagerly, and an invisible temporal arm slung around her waist to pull her safely inside.

Rose chuckled and then giggled with happy laughter as she stumbled up the ramp, stroking the coral arms of the ship as she walked. “And hello to you, too, my beautiful girl.”

Both Doctors stood in the doorway with wide eyes of utter confusion toward this human woman seemingly communing with one of the most temperamental TT-Capsules ever to come out of Gallifrey.

Six didn’t look at his elder self, but he did lean curiously toward him. “Human,” he asked softly. “Are you quite sure?”

“She was when we met her,” he answered with his own measure of curiosity.

“The TARDIS certainly seems to like her.”

Nine frowned. “Yes, she does, doesn’t she?”

“And yet, you seem quite curious and confused about that,” Six noted dryly. “I would think, as your current companion, this would be commonplace for you.”

“So, we’re clear,” he answered darkly. “Rose is not my companion. Rose is from our future.”

“I see,” he answered slowly. “Which brings forth the question of just why she’s with the past, and not with ...”

“Yes, yes,” Nine said with a roll in his eyes. “A question I am already asking, thank you.”

“And have you received an answer?”

Nine nodded and stepped forward, closing the doors of the ship behind him. “I have. And I don’t like it.”

“Then I will hazard a guess I won’t either.”

“That would mean that you agree with me, which historically you never do.” He walked up to the jump seat, where Rose was perched with her boots off so she could rub her feet. “Tuckered out, are you?”

“A bit, yeah.”

He shook his head and exhaled a disappointed breath. “Humans....”

“Time Lords,” she huffed with equal disdain. She then looked up to the ceiling and smiled as her eyes closed. A happy hum exhaled through her nose. “I missed you, too,” she breathed out long.

She opened her eyes to find two very curious pairs of blue eyes looking curiously at her from a very uncomfortably close distance. She jerked backward with a gasp. “Personal distance, yeah?”

Neither man moved. Nine did speak up, however. “Are you and the TARDIS being friendly?”

Six frowned. “I’m far more curious about the fact that Rose and the TARDIS seem to be conversing.” His eyes flicked briefly toward Nine. “Which shouldn’t be possible for a human.”

“Difficult enough for a Time Lord,” Nine remarked. “But a human, well, that boggles the mind completely.”

Rose merely blinked at the two of them.

Nine straightened up from his lean and rubbed at his chin. “Who are you?”

Rose shuffled a little further back on the jump seat, putting as much distance between her and two Doctors as she could without climbing over the top of it.

“I’m Rose,” she answered slowly as though talking to little children who weren’t really listening to her instructions. She looked at Nine. “You and me already met, remember? London. Shop basement. Living mannequins on a murderous rampage?”

That intrigued the Sixth man. “Murderous living mannequins? Well that sounds interesting.”

“Autons,” Nine answered. “Nestine Consciousness underneath the London Eye. Unpleasant business....”

“I saved his life,” Rose preened with a smile that bit onto her tongue.

“Yes, and I thanked you for that,” Nine said with a gruff in his tone. “No need for you to keep bringing it up.”

“When you give me a medal for it ...”

“I already gave you the key to the TARDIS,” he replied with a quick slip of his eyes to the glint of metal between her breasts. “Better than any medal, if you ask me.”

“Ahhhhh,” she breathed out. “Of course, Mayor Doctor. But I didn’t get to give a speech.... soooo...”

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned backward. “Human?” He asked flatly, more for him than her If the tone of his voice was anything to go by.

“Yep.”

He shook his head. “Maybe.”

“No maybe about it,” she groaned. “Mum and dad, both human. Can’t quite pop out anything else.” She saw the Doctor’s jaw work slowly and gave him a glare. “And if you’re even thinking of questioning my Mum’s morals, Doctor, I’ll thump you.”

Six smiled. “And I shall assist by holding him still for you, my dear.” He let out a dramatic huff and shook his head. “Really, Doctor. Hardly appropriate for you to make a question upon that ... particularly in front of the woman’s daughter.”

“Give you a few hundred years...” Nine replied with a roll in his eyes. He then offered Rose an overstretched smile. “Now how about you set about putting something more comfortable and less muddy on.” He looked to the corridor. “I am sure the TARDIS will be only happy to accommodate your needs. The wardrobe is...”

“I know where it is,” she sang out lightly as she slid off the seat, thankful for the chance to escape the curious eyes of two Time Lords, even if only for a short moment. “Be right back, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Nine said with a nod. “Take your time. I promise I won’t kill him in your absence.”

Rose turned to walk backward toward the doorway. There was a pinch in her brow. “Why would you need to make me that promise?”

“No reason, now off with you.” He shooed her with a wave of his hands.

Six watched curiously as Rose turned and jogged through the door. In his peripheral he watched his elder self wander toward the console and begin a series of scans. He turned and walked to join him. “And what are you up to?”

“Asking the old girl to do a quick scan of our rather intriguing companion. Confirming species. “

“And you believe the TARDIS will be willing to perform those scans?” He pursed his lips. “And if she does, will she give you the information you require?”

Nine smirked victoriously as the console beeped and the screen flickered to life with rows of data. He let out a curious sound as his brows crashes together.

“What is it?” Six queried with a look over his shoulder. His eyes widened at the indecipherable text on screen. “Odd. Just what language is that, and why isn’tt it being translated?”

“I have no idea on either question,” he mused to himself. “Let me see if I can...” he tipped at a snap of electricity at the tips of his fingers. “What in the name of Rassilon?!”

Six chuckled low. “Oh, you sneaky girl.”

“What?” He questioned low.

“Using a language she refuses to translate.” He tapped his fingers on the edge of the console. “Someone’s keeping secrets. Very naughty.”

“Very rude and possibly very dangerous,” Nine chided with a waffle of his finger. “It’s not very nice of you. “

Six nodded his head slowly, his eyes narrowing in warning. “We can force it out of you. We are quite brilliant programmers, you do realize. Overriding your petulance will be easy enough.”

“If you say so,” Nine mumbled. “When was the last time _you_ got a zap on the wrist from her?”

“Not since my last body, if I recall....” The monitor flickered a moment, blinked out, then blinked back on. Two words flashed up on screen that had both men straighten up with surprise and curiosity. “Bad wolf?” Six said with incredulity in his tone. “What does Bad Wolf mean?”

“What does it mean, indeed,” Nine remarked flatly. “Not anything good, I would imagine.”

“Your friend would know,” Six offered. “Ask her in the right way, and I am sure she’ll oblige you the answer.”

Nine sniffed and slipped his hand into his pocket, drawing out the Dimension Canon he’d pickpocketed from Rose when they were on the run from mutant cassowaries. “Just like she was so eager to hand this over when I asked.”

“Oh, do tell me that it was given to you of her free will and you didn’t simply remove it from her person using nefarious means.”

“I don’t want to lie to you....”

Six pursed his lips. “I see,” he murmured. His eyes held the curiosity that was typical for him in any incarnation. “Means of snafflement aside ... what is it?”

Nine held it in both hands and let his eyes shift across the face of it. Neatly and artfully constructed, there seemed to be careful planning and design that went into it. There was nary a loose wire or crack on it at all to suggest it had been cobbled together in a dark basement laboratory or anything else as dangerous. “A device capable of allowing her to breach dimensional walls, as is my understanding.”

“Oh, don’t be so gullible,” Six said with a huff. “A leap through dimensional walls requires movement through the void. Painful when protected by a capsule or other travel ship. An unprotected individual passing through the void would be fatal.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Nine agreed. “Which leaves a whole host of extremely unsettling questions.” His eyes flicked to the doorway. “Either she’s lying about what it is, and this device is far more dangerous than just a travel device; or Rose is a being of such incredible power, that she is able to transverse dimensional walls, passing through the void unprotected, without harm....”

“Gullibility,” Six huffed. “Of course, it isn’t a dimensional device capable of void travel. A human can not pass through the void in that way. A Time Lord can’t even manage it, and we created that damn void to make sure dimensional hopping was unattainable outside of our people.” He gestured to the device. “It’s probably nothing but a child’s toy she waved at you with the intent to distract you enough to complete whatever other nefarious deed she has in mind to complete.”

Nine shook his head. “Oddly enough, Doctor, I don’t believe she has any ulterior motive.”

“You trust her?” He questioned with a light snark of disappointment. “A human girl that you don’t even know, and you trust that she’s not up to something?” His eyes narrowed. “A human that mysteriously appeared at the site of an invasion of mutant creatures born of her home planet....”

“The TARDIS trusts her,” Nine said firmly. “And therefore, so do I.”

“Well do forgive me if I don’t share the same trust in her as you do.” He held both hands down on the console. “I can see affection rising within you toward this girl, Doctor. At least one of us should be looking at this with unbiased eyes....”

“Unbiased,” he said with a roll in his eyes. “What bias could I possibly have except to trust my oldest friend?” He held the device with the pads of his fingers and slotted it into a small cradle on the console. “Let’s have the TARDIS analyze it, then...”

“So, we can be provided with cryptic words of faery tales,” he huffed.

The console beeped and the monitor lit up with the swirling circular language of the Time Lords. A complete analysis of the device performed within seconds. Both Time Lords leaned forward to read the information.

“Oh,” Six breathed out with surprise at the data. “A dimensional leap device....”

“Constricted outside this dimension but powered by Artron from this side of the dimensional walls,” Nine continued. He let out a sound of surprise and straightened up to his full height. He laid one arm along his belly and pressed an elbow into his forearm to rub thoughtfully at his jaw. “How is this even possible? Artron is a Time Lord energy, and only exists ... well ... inside this TARDIS.”

“In all TARDIS’ born on Gallifrey,” Six corrected him sharply. “In abundance, I may add.”

Nine slid a look toward him and hummed out an indecipherable sound.

Six glared at him. “So, the collection of Artron from this side of the wall, to take across that side .... well it isn’t exactly an impossibility.” He shook his head. “We traverse the boundaries of dimensions all the time, Doctor. Don’t behave as though it is an irregularity.”

“I guess not....” he answered slowly. He knew it was a considerable impossibility without his own - and last remaining - TARDIS procure Artron for such a device. Whatever the true source, it was somewhat terrifying to consider…

What in the name of Rassilon and the founders of his society had happened to his elder self? Had Rose lied him with her tale of heartbreak?

He sincerely hoped not.

His fingers drummed on the console’s edge as he tried to work through the very many scenarios that presented inside his mind.

“Of course,” Six muttered out curiously. “The TARDIS holds a love and trust toward her that she has never shared with anyone outside of us.”

“I had considered that.” Nine said in a whisper. “And the fact that she can converse with her as only you and I can.”

Six appeared slightly amused. “There is one scenario we haven’t considered.”

“And that is?”

He leaned forward with a hard lean on the console. “That Rose is a future incarnation of ourself.”

Nine spit out laughing. “Oh, don’t be so painfully dim witted. Of course, she’s not the future of us. I’ve met her in our past, quite recently. She has a mother, a boyfriend, a full childhood of humanity in Earth. To suggest she is me is so ridiculous I want to laugh.” He forced out a pair of laughs through an open mouth directed up at the ceiling. “Idiot.”

“Think about it seriously,” Six urged him. “The TARDIS clearly adores her. She openly communicates and welcomed her on board as though a lost lover - precisely the greeting we receive after a regeneration or lengthened absence from her.” He pointed to the device. “Technology so far advanced of the human race that they’d never get it working before the demise of their entire species. The only one capable of something like that is you ... and me.”

Nine’s eyes opened wide and stayed that way. “But I met her,” he said quietly. “Human. With a human life.”

“Chameleon Arch,” Six offered brusquely. “Or a regeneration form chosen specifically by us to close off what is clearly a causal loop needing closure.”

Nine considered that somewhat seriously a moment. It made sense. Sort of. His brows pulled together and his eyes closed. He shook his head.

While the suggestion was believable... if one squinted very hard ... Nine wasn’t quite so eager to accept that rationale.

“You have to admit, Doctor, that it isn’t completely outside the realm of possibility,” Six pressed on almost excitedly. “And it is hardly the most insane thing we’ve ever done in our lives.”

“You have no idea how much I want to argue with you on that,” Nine said with a moan and a rub at his brows. “It’s idiocy in its finest, but you’re right ....”. He gave his younger self a look of disbelief. “But I don’t quite understand just why Rose wouldn’t tell us the truth of it, if that’s the case.”

“Embarrassed most likely,” Six said with a shrug. “Lost her TARDIS, in a form that neither of us would ever expect to regenerate into...”

“We’ve always put our regenerations on random,” Nine said with a shrug. “Without conscious thought, we would remain in our current gender.”

“And so whomever of us decides that female is the way to go, obviously does so with the knowledge of this moment in mind....”

Nine thought about it. “And so we regenerate into the form of a companion from our past ... As Romana did when she took on Princess Astra’s form.”

Six folded his arms across his chest. “So, we are in agreement, then. Rose is a future incarnation. For her own reasons, has felt that we must be kept blind to this future of us.”

“And so, we don’t tell her now that we know?”

“Possibly best that we don’t,” Nine decided. “Respect our reasons for keeping it to ourself.”

Six nodded. “Perhaps that is for the best, then.”

“Then we agree?”

“Although the sign of a coming apocalypse, yes. Yes, we agree.”

Rose’s voice filtered in from the doorway. There was amusement and curiosity in her words.

“And just what are we in agreement on, lads?”

They both turned toward her, startled innocence in both of their expressions. Both had intended on uttering a simultaneous “oh, nothing,” but the words caught to see what she was wearing.

A pair of grey and black houndstooth trousers coupled with a radiant blue silk blouse, covered in a thick, lavender-coloured wool and cashmere jacket that had a long, thickly knitted scarf that looped her neck twice, yet still dragged along the ground by at least two inches.

Fashion most definitely of the Doctor variety.

“If we needed further confirmation,” Six muttered.

Rose gave a light wince. “I think the TARDIS is having a bit of a laugh,” she said sheepishly. “Had a nice jeans and shirt combination all easy to go on my bed. Ducked in for a shower, and she’s replaced it with this.” She laughed a gleeful sound of amusement. “And who am I to argue with the old girl when she sets her mind on something?” She petted a coral arm, then stroked it affectionately. “At least it’s cosy.”

Both men watched as she walked along the grated floor in a pair of dirty cream runners, perfect for fleeing quickly if the need arose. Their expressions varied only by each man’s aver on whether or not their deduction toward her true identity was in any way accurate.

Rose eyeballed them both with light suspicion as she drew closer. “Okay. What’s really on your minds, then?” She pointed a finger toward them. “I know that look better than you think I do.”

“Oh, I am sure you do,” Six said with a smile. “Quite sure, in fact.”

Rose hummed and narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him. “Uh-huh. Right.” She got to the console and took a look down. Immediately she saw her dimension canon, and her joviality shifted to immediate annoyance. Her voice came out low and very angry. “Is that my dimension canon?” She growled.

Nine offered a rather indignant look. “Yes it is.”

“How did you get that?” She snarled. “I told you no, and you went and stole it anyway?”

“I told you,” he drawled. “If I wanted it, I would get it.” He gestured toward it. “I wanted it, so I got it.”

Rose narrowed her eyes and fisted her hands at her side. There was fury inside her brown eyes that was enough to make him draw in a deep breath.

“I told you,” she growled. “That the device is safe. That I made it.” She exhaled. “And need it to get back home when this is all done.”

“Home to what?” Nine asked her flatly.

“Home to... to ...”. She sniffed and held out her hand for the device. “Home to my team to prepare for another jump to get to the Doctor I’m actually looking for.”

“And who might that be?” Six asked.

She gestured toward Nine. “The one after him. The one I need to find.”

“And neither one of us can help you?” Nine asked. He pursed his lips. “Quite sure that whatever you’ve misplaced, we can help you find.”

“I haven’t misplaced anything,” she said firmly.

“Your TARDIS?” Six asked, only to receive a groan from Nine.

“Keep it to ourselves, he says, don’t let on....”

Rose looked between the two men. Her eyes narrowed. “Let on about what?” She queried. “And unless you’re talking about the Doctor’s TARDIS, I don’t have one.”

“But the Doctor’s TARDIS is yours?” Six asked with as much question as making a statement about it.

Rose’s face creased up tightly. “No, not exactly, but she loves me and I love her, so yeah. Yeah, I guess.”

Six smiled almost warmly. “Yes, she certainly does seem to hold affection toward you, my dear girl. Although I hardly find that surprising. I am sure that she’s very happy to have a Time Lord of her own .... well, that is female as she is.”

Nine moaned out with a shake in his head. “You are horrendous at this, aren’t you?”

Rose looked between them both, her face still locked in the expression of utter confusion. “Both of you aren’t making a lot of sense right now, you know that?” She looked at Six. “Now I dunno what you think you know, but it’s obviously wrong if this one ...” she gestured to Nine. “... if he’s not all on-board with it.”

“He is very much on board, thank you.”

“Whatever,” she huffed. She looked back to Nine and held out her hand. “Can I have my Cannon back, now? Were you able to get what you wanted from it?”

He lifted the device from the cradle and looked at it a moment before handing it back. “I got enough,” he answered. “Seems safe enough ... for now...”

“So you don’t want to break it, then?”

His lips pressed together tightly and he slowly shook his head. He still wanted to dismantle the damn thing, no doubt about it. He was loathe to trust it in the hands of anyone - including himself. But If Rose really was the future of him, in the form of someone he clearly felt enough emotion for that he would regenerate with her face ....

....and right there, with that thought in his mind, he decided beyond all reasonable doubt that his younger self was a complete idiot.

The future of him? No. No. No.

His hold on the canon faltered just slightly, enough that he pulled it back toward himself. “Who are you to me?” He asked quietly; quiet aggression borne of not knowing staining his voice.

  
Six grunted impatiently. “Have we not already determined that?”

Nine held up his hand to him, keeping his eyes on Rose. “Tell me, or you aren’t getting this back.”

Rose’s fierce facade faltered at that question. It wasn’t the question itself that jarred her so hard, but at the look of fierce distrust in his eyes. That was an expression she had never received from him in all of their years together, and it hurt so much to see it now.

“I’m Rose,” she answered in a lightly pathetic tone. “Your companion. Your best friend ....”. She blinked. “And someone who loves you more than you could ever possibly understand.” She held out her hand. “Now. Please. Give me back my dimension cannon so I can go back home and try again later to find you ....” she gulped. “The one who loves me just as much.”

Six moaned at her side with disbelief and distrust to her words, but Nine looked at her with affection. He was the only one of the two men who could see the sincerity inside her eyes.

“You can’t have this back,” he said with quiet firmness. “I have to destroy it.”

“But you can’t!” He let it fall with a clatter to the grating at his feet and stomped hard on it with the heel of his boot. He winced at her pained cry.

“You’re stuck on this side of the dimensional wall now,” he stated with a lift in his chin in challenge for her to yell or cry or call him any of the names he was already calling himself.

Rose didn’t yell or cry or do anything of the sort. She just watched the smallest remnants of it tumble down through the grating. “I’ll never see them again,” she said sadly. “My mum. Dad. Tony. Mickey.....”

“Did you expect to?” He asked. “If you found the me you’re looking for?”

She swallowed hard. “I had hoped. But ....”. She looked up at him with reddening eyes. “But now. Now it’s permanent.”

Six was perplexed, and horribly disappointed in himself. He had been so sure, so damn sure of his - admittedly brilliant - deduction. What a way to find out how very wrong he had been.

“I love you?” He asked quietly, a small measure of awe in his voice. “In my future, you and I... are we...?”

Rose looked to Six, his technicolored jacket, his mop of curly blonde hair, and the look of complete shock on his face. It was clear to her that this was a man who would never ever assume that he would truly find love in his future ... the idea never even occurred to him.

“We are ... _together_ ,” she answered gently. “In the ways of lovers, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I honestly don’t know what I’m asking,” he managed out after a swallow. “And that frightens me a little. If you wish me to be honest.”

Rose smiled. “A hard expectation on a good day,” she replied. She looked back to Nine with desperation in her eyes. “Tell me that you can find him for me, Doctor. That you can take me back to him.” She looked back down at the cannon. “Because if you tell me no, then what you just did is behind cruel — both to me, and to you.”

“When we first met,” Nine said quietly. “I’d just lost everything. Everything I cared about most in this entire universe. I felt I deserved nothing but to suffer, alone, for the rest of my lives.” He drew in a breath and softened his eyes at her. “What you’re telling me, is that in my future, I travel with you, I not only find the beat of my hearts again, but I willingly allow them to beat again. That I _deserve_ to feel them beat inside my chest again.”

She nodded her head.

“You say we are together in all the ways of lovers.” He drew in a hopeful breath. “Are we married?”

“Should I even answer that?”

“I need to know,” he pleaded. “I need to know if I accept your heart and give mine back to you with the promise of forever.” He drew in another breath and held it right before exhaling slowly. “Are you my wife?”

She stepped forward and lifted her hand to his cheek. With a light smile of affection, she rolled up onto her toes and moved her mouth toward his ear. She whispered a series of long forgotten syllables into his ear, a name he’d long suppressed and even denied existed.

He faltered to one side as the syllables tapered off into silence. She rolled back down on her feet and ran her hand down along his arm. Her eyes didn’t leave his.

“You tell me,” she said softly.

His hand swatted desperately in search of hers as he whimpered in a breath, then exhaled it shakily. “My hearts are yours....” he said quietly.

“And mine is yours.”

He swallowed a lump that physically hurt the back of his throat. He then sniffed deeply, straightened himself up to his full height, and beamed a megawatt grin at her. Any shakiness he had in the last few seconds were now completely absent. “Well then. I guess this means one thing, then?”

“And what’s that?” She asked hopefully. “Well, when were solved the cassowary problem here in Toronto, we have a future me to find, Don’t we?”

_~~_ oooOOOooo _~~_

One thing that Rose had to note with a smile about the Doctor, was that once he got all the answers he was looking for, he did fall out of his annoying flying gnat-like incessantness and get quickly back to the business at hand. After her reluctant confession, it took less than thirty seconds for him to shift from asking about their future relationship to ignoring the idea completely.

Both versions of him had raced around the TARDIS console in search of various pieces of technology and weaponry-of-sorts that they could very quickly tinker with to enact a rather successful takedown of the invasion of mutant cassowaries that lurked in the brushland surrounding Toronto. Foolishly, Rose had opted to follow both men as they performed their search. Very quickly she had arms laden with all sorts of junk of which she was pretty sure only about 10% of it might be used – and that was being generous.

She had to take to leaning around pipes and steel balloons in order to see either man. Very uncomfortable, really, and really only further confirmed the lack of real chivalry within the Doctor. Not one of them had any item in their hands and arms, they loaded everything on her.

The two men spoke to each other in rapid Gallifreyan with finger points, gestures, and oftentimes disgruntled growls and grunts in reply to the other. On any other moment, Rose might think it adorable to see the train wreck mind of him working through his ideas and formulating plans. But right now, it was becoming exasperating to endure. She felt like the rusted rimmed, cracked rubber spare tyre hooked on the back of a jeep rather than one of the well greased and useful ones that actually touched the road to push them forward.

“So?” she interrupted with a hard huff after standing for almost five full minutes with her arms aching and full of tech while the two men conversed in a language so lyrical and harmonious with its trills, burrs, and inflictions that it may as well have been designed to have been sung on a concert stage instead of used in simple conversation. “You actually going to be using any of this, or what?”

Neither man answered her. Instead they stood mere feet apart and fell into silence of thought, both men rubbing curiously at their chins as they worked through information and suggestions offered from the other man. It was quite clear that either they didn’t hear Rose, or they were ignoring her completely.

There was a simple way to confirm the latter. The use of a either a crass, or simply scandalous recount of what the Pinstriped version of himself enjoyed behind closed TARDIS bedroom doors. Seeing one or both of them choke to death in horror would be quite justified given the current circumstance of her being their literal beast of burden here. But then again, she did need at least one of them to transport her into their future to get her to said Pinstriped Time Lord.

Instead, she exhaled a long grunt, opened her arms wide, and let the entire plethora of electronics, pipes, wires, and whatever else she held fall to the grating with an almighty clatter. Metal on metal, there were sparks and loud clanging that had both Time Lords jump in shock.

“Must you really make all that noise?” Six yapped out in a somewhat high-pitched voice. “You nearly startled me to regeneration, young lady.” He put one hand on his hip and waggled a finger at her. “And unless you are aware that fright was what had me regenerate into my next form, then do take care not to risk a paradoxical waver along the timelines by bringing it on early.”

Nine looked at him with a single brow lifted on his forehead. “How very irrationally dramatic of you.” He gave him a sliding look up and down. “Then again, with the expressive stage-show technicolourin’ you walk around in, dramatics really should be expected.”

“And in case you have forgotten, my good man…”

“Have been actively tryin’ to at any rate.”

“...Bright colours illicit a far more positive reaction than grunge ever will,” he groused.

Nine rubbed at his jaw and hummed. “You might be surprised.”

Rose huffed at still being effectively ignored by the two men, both of which would be come her husband one day. It was ... frustrating.

“You know what?” she said after a moment longer. “You two do what you want to do, critique each other’s wardrobe if you must, but I’m going outside to see what we can do about these bird-human-hybrids out there that are killin’ and chasing around the natives.”

Very quickly a man stood either side of her. “Not without me, you’re not,” Nine warned her darkly, his hand circling around hers with ease.

“And indeed not without me, either,” Six said with a wide grin and a back straightened proudly. “There is no way that I will allow the woman who one day holds my hearts in her hands to step out into danger alone.”

“Danger is pretty much our life,” she remarked with a long sigh. “Intentional or not, the amount of times you let me step foot outside into danger happens more often than it not happening.” She felt the movement of Nine’s hand shift to slide his fingers between hers to cradle them together at his side. She looked up into his face with genuine affection and held their hands up between them. “But as long as I feel my hand in yours, Doctor. I know I’m safe.”

The expression that fell upon his features in response to that gave her a shudder and a shake in her shoulders. There was genuine affection inside his eyes. Genuine affection and even longing of sorts …

…For the love of a woman he barely even knew.

Six watched the expression shift on his elder self’s face with a look of curiosity. Seemed that at some juncture in his future, he found himself in need of the affection of others. Strange. He’d never really fancied that before in any of his life leading to now. What had happened in his timeline to make him appear so needy?

“If we don’t mind,” Six said after a moment. “Shall we embark on this mission of freedom for our friendly Torontonians?”

“Torontonians?” Nine barked out incredulously. “What an awful name.”

“And what would you prefer, then?”

“Toronto Residents,” Nine offered with an indignant lift in his chin. “A little less on the side of whimsical.”

“But very much a mouthful when one is trying to speak a rapid-fire series of commands, don’t you think?”

“And you believe they’d take a command from a man dressed like he fell into a technicoloured soup vat?”

“Must you continually remark on my fashion choices?” he growled in reply. “Which is quite laughable considering you were once me, and ergo, had the same fashion sense as do I right now.”

“If one can’t look back on their youth and acknowledge the errors of their ways, then…”

“Will you both please stop?” Rose whined out with a rub at her brows. “Really. You’re givin’ me a headache.”

“I can fix that, darling,” Six offered with a lift of his hand. He moved it toward her temple, and actually seemed surprised when she jerked to avoid his touch. “Just a tender touch,” he vowed. “Let me seek out those misfiring receptors that are causing the pain within that quite obviously beautiful mind of yours and settle them down.”

“Let me elaborate, _darling_ ,” she replied. “You. The two of you are causing my headache. Stop your gripin’ and snipin’, and it’ll stop.” She inhaled deeply and pressed the butt of her hand against her forehead to press away the headache that was indeed rising inside. Looking at the two men, they stood either side of her wrist between her eyes. “Now. You two have been snipin’ for an hour now. Is there any chance at all that you’ve found a way to stop these things, or do we need to spend another hour making up a plan?”

Nine’s eyes brightened and he smiled somewhat victoriously. “A plan, Rose Tyler? I’ll give you a plan.”

She pulled her hand from her brow and looked at him with disbelief. “You actually have one?”

“Of course, I do,” he answered cheerfully.

“When did you have time to come up with something while arguin’ with him?” she asked with a lazy gesture toward Six.

“Multitasking,” he beamed with a tap at his temple. “This brilliant mind of mine is capable of working through many things at one time. Arguing with my younger self while creating a plan for attack, piece of cake.”

Rose shook her head. “You think you’re so impressive.”

He chuckled low. “Rose, I am impressive,” he replied with a wink.

~~ooooOOOoooo~~

Rose stood with her back against a tree, and a long-muzzled gun held down between her parted legs. Just why the Doctor had issued her with a weapon, she didn’t quite understand. When he’d handed it to her, he had issued it with one warning: You’ve got one shot, so don’t waste it. One. No more than that. So, keep the safety on, and don’t be playing cowboys and Indians and pew-pewing around the place.

She had darkly reminded him that not only was ‘Cowboys and Indians’ offensive in her timeline, but that she was older than five years of age, and was ill-inclined to ‘pew pew’ anything outside of a text message on her iphone, and she only did that because of the cool lasers that moved across her screen when she sent that…

…The long suffering look she received from her pinstriped Doctor the first time she sent him that text message from across the command deck of the TARDIS was brilliant. Meanwhile, she howled in laughter.

But pew pew now was not an iphone pew pew. This was serious business, and with the Doctor’s warning, she really was reluctant to pew pew at all.

She rolled her head on the thick rough bark of the tree to look across the distance toward her Doctor in leather. He was braced on the tree in much the same manner as she was, with a gun identical to hers held between his hands between his parted legs. He looked toward her and sizzled a cheeky wink at her. He released one hand from the trigger of his gun to point toward the gun she held.

“One shot,” he mouthed with deliberate exaggeration in the formation of his words to be read across the distance. He then pointed toward a limb above him. “There.”

Rose’s eyes widened at that. “What?” she mouthed in reply as she pointed upward. “Up there?”

“Yes.”

Her brows pulled together. “Why? It’ll crash on you!”

“What?” he mouthed, not able to translate her suddenly rapid-mouthed wording.

She pointed upward. “That,” she exaggerated. “Will fall.” She moved her hand quickly downward in the air to indicate it crashing down. “And splat.” She blew a raspberry to indicate splat, then finished up by mouthing his name very slowly. Watching as he slowly nodded his head to indicate he was deciphering her mouth movements properly.

He smiled and shook his head. He lifted his gun to show her. It was at this juncture, rather than when he’d originally handed her the gun, that he decided to explain it to her. She lost him after his third word, but lifted her brows, nodded slowly, and appeared to register everything he was mouthing to her. When he was done, he looked at her expectantly in question as to whether or not she’d understood what he’d been saying over the past, say, thirty seconds.

Rose pursed her lips and shook her head with a shrug.

His jaw fell and his eyes widened as his shoulders fell into a slump. He looked downward, his hand to his forehead and gave it a shake. A clearly deeply drawn breath, and he turned to walk across the distance toward her for a proper vocalised explanation rather than play charades between trees.

Only one step was taken, however, before he was forced backward against the tree. His face tightened up into a grimace and he practically bounced in place in expectation of what was on arrival. He looked to Rose with desperation inside his eyes, desperation that she do exactly what he asked of her. He pointed up at a limb above his head and made a gun with his fingers. 

A quick jolt of his hand indicated to her that it was where she needed to shoot her gun.

“Fine,” she huffed in reply. Obviously, he had a plan, although really, what it was, she didn’t know. Not to say she often did where the Doctor was concerned. Usually it was just a matter of her rolling with the punches, so to speak.

A low grunting sound weaved its way across the unkempt grasses of the forest border. A growling sound, a hump, then a low and almost electrical hum followed. Rose looked toward the Doctor and noted his firm brace against the tree trunk. He was quite ready for whatever was on approach. Was she?”

More low growling and grunting, and a rustle in the trees behind hers. Rose closed her eyes and pressed her back hard against the bark. She held her breath and centred herself in preparation for what was coming. Her held breath slowly shifted to draw deeply in and out, and as the sounds of dangerous wildlife grew closer, her breath began to draw in and out as hard pants. Her shoulders heaved and she looked toward her Doctor with an expression of absolute and honest fear.

He offered her a supportive wink and mouthed that she’d be safe. That he had her back. It was enough for her to hold firm and draw in a steadying breath. It didn’t matter that this Doctor wasn’t quite hers, but she determined that if she got out of this in one piece, that she was going to snog him right out of his socks.

Oh yes, she was.

The low and animalistic grunting and growling shifted toward a more man-like sound of warning, and Rose lifted her gun to aim at the branch above the Doctor’s head. She noted with slight dismay that he was aimed toward a limb above hers. Her expression was one of surprise and fear, but his return look was still as reassuring and tender as it had always been.

“I trust you,” she mouthed toward him.

Slowly, and with clear movements of his mouth and lips, he counted down from five. Each downward count saw him shift his fingers on his weapon. They rippled along the handle and over the trigger. As he got to “one,” the technicoloured version of him shot through the space between trees. He hollered out the word, “Now!”

Both Rose and the Doctor pressed the triggers of their weapons with perfect synchronicity. Blue lines of laser fire sizzled out of both weapons and snagged around the limbs above. The lazer bolts rained down from above in a criss-cross pattern that formed a thick, glowing net that spanned the entire break between trees perfectly.

At the centre of the net, the Sixth Doctor danced in an enticing manner. His voice growled and hummed, then thumped and buzzed low in the back of his throat.

The gun in Rose’s hand was now clearly spent and she let it hand low at her side as she watched the dancing Doctor with wide eyes of curiosity and wonder at just what in the name of all things he was actually doing. Whatever it was, it worked, though, because out of the thicket an entire black and blue army of large mutant birds emerged. Their sounds, their grunting, and their thumping was identical to the Doctor’s. They rushed toward him with fury inside their eyes and a charging dip in their heads. As each one hit the blue netting, however, it disappeared with a small whoop sound. One after another, the net captured another, and yet another one of the vicious birds.

It took a good five minutes, but eventually the rush from the thicket ceased entirely. The blue laser netting stretched and shifted against the breeze and emitted a low and light hum.

The dancing Doctor finally stopped his routine and staggered into a forward lean. He pressed his hands into his knees and pointed toward the ground. “Next time,” he said with a lift of his hand not followed by his head. “You’re doing the dancing.”

“Care to tell me why you needed to dance around like that in the first place?” Rose asked him curiously as she strode toward him and rubbed her hand in between his shoulder blades. She could feel the sweat from the dance through his jacket and the heaving of his shoulders from his heavy breathing.

“I might have told him it was a mating dance of the cassowaries,” Nine muttered with amusement in her ear. “And that it would be the best way to attract not only the females, but the territorial males as well.”

“I see,” Rose said with a purse in her lips. “And just getting their attention as a potential meal wasn’t enough?”

Rose wrapped her arm around his waist. “Lean on me, Doctor. Don’t you worry. I’ve got you.” She passed her gaze toward Nine as he approached, balling up the netting into a massive armful of what looked like thick nylon. “They're in there, then?”

He shrugged. “Not really sure how this works, if I’m bein’ honest. “Picked this kit up at a show in fratreran about a century ago. I’ll have to get back to the TARDIS and do some analysis to be sure, but I think they’re trapped in here somewhere. Some kind of secondary dimension to the one we’re standin’ in as was my understandin’.”

Rose chuckled. “For your sake, Doctor. I hope so. Hate to think you unleashed that lot on some other unsuspecting civilisation.”

“I really don't want to think about it.

She leaned into the shoulder of the Sixth Doctor. “So now that we’ve done that. What’re we going to do for the rest of the night?”

Nine looked toward her and sighed. “I’m going to find the one who lost you,” he said quietly. “Return you to where you need to be. After that, it’ll be up to my elder self what the two of you get up to for the rest of the night…”

~~oooOOOooo~~

The mood inside Nine’s TARDIS was ... well ... quiet. After the rush and panic of netting all of the mutant cassowaries, even general conversation might seem quiet. The fact that no one was saying anything at all was practically deafening.

Once they breached the doors and stride up the ramp, Nine very quickly set about trying to put the netting away. A large garbage bag proved to be frustratingly difficult to maneuver the net into, which resulted in a rather mad Time Lord throwing a tiny bit of a tantrum and tearing it wide open. Nine had considered wrapping the black plastic around the net, but with no tape or twine anywhere on-board, that was out of the question.

Anything that Six suggested was immediately kyboshed and determined to be “stupid”, and so now, the net was bundled into a messy pile and shoved to the side of the console room with a promise to deal with the sodding thing later.

The annoyed scowl on Nine’s face warned the other two not to speak up, and so they remained silent as Nine strode circle after circle around his console, randomly pressing buttons and flipping switches.

Six was without his jacket for now. Damp with sweat and risking a dangerous rise in core temperature, Rose has insisted that he remove the garment. He’d acquiesced with rather false reluctance...

...truth was, he wanted the damn thing off just as much as the rest of them did. Something about the colours being so perfect for avian mating rituals had put him off even wanting to look at it for at least the next century.

Perhaps he could trial out the blue version of the jacket that he’d seen in the wardrobe room for a little while?

“Do you need me to get you a drink or something?” Rose asked him quietly down along her shoulder as she slouched against a coral strut at his side.

“Oh no,” he assured her with a gentle smile. “Thank you for your kind offer, but I really must decline. No sense in you being put out on my account.”

“How about if I tell you I’m grabbin’ one for myself?” She offered with a smile. “Will that change your mind?”

“There really is no need,” he assured her with a light touch to her shoulder. “But I do wish for you to offer me your best wishes in dealing with the grumpy one over there.”

She hooked her hair behind her ear and kept her hand on her neck as she looked toward Nine. “I wonder why he’s so ....”. She hummed a moment. “Why he seems unhappy?”

“Likely just a whim of this incarnation, I’ll wager,” he offered with a light shrug. “He has the perfect facial structure for a decent scowl. Best it not be wasted on smiling.”

Rose hummed again. She shook her head lightly. “He has a beautiful smile.”

“Beauty most definitely being in the eye of the beholder, it seems.”

Rose shook her head and pushed herself up off the coral strut with a roll of her shoulders. “Not just me,” she said with a wink. “He’s got his admirers; don’t you worry about that.”

“That is good to know. I suppose.”

Rose approached the console with all of the care of a person approaching a wounded animal. She made sure to stay well within his peripheral and kept her eyes on his.

“Doctor?” She ventured somewhat warily.

He stopped his walk around the console and offered her a somewhat perplexed expression. “You seem scared,” he noted curiously. “Why is that?”

“You seem in a bad mood,” she answered without beating around the bush. One thing about this Doctor, it was best to get it out as clearly and succinctly as possible. “Wonderin’ why.”

The tilt of his head shifted deeper as he considered her words. His expression then relaxed and he gave her a light smile. “No. Not in a bad mood, Rose Tyler. I am simply thinking, that’s all.”

“Oh? About what?”

“A list that is long and varied,” he admitted with a shrug. He tapped at his temple. “Always something going on up here. “He looked down at the console. “But right now, I’m finding myself in a bit of a quandary about just how to reach forward along the timelines to find your very specific version of me so that I can get you back without blowin’ apart the timelines.”

“Ahhhhh,” she breathed out. “Bit more complicated than you thought, then?”

“Noooooooo,” he drawled out long. “Not complicated for someone as clever as me...”

“Liar,” she teased.

He wore a smile as he hummed a light chuckle.

Six approached the console, tugging on his jacket with a light wince at the dampness of it. Oh, it was going to smell later.

“Perhaps we can ask our future wife here to confer with the TARDIS to locate the appropriate temporal coordinates?” He looked down at her fondly. “She does seem to have a good rapport with the old girl.”

“Makes sense,” Nine said with a sniff. “I agree.”

Rose gaped a dramatic sound and planted her feet firmly on the grating. She held her hands outward as though bracing for something terrible.

Nine quickly looked around then with alarm. “What? What is it?”

Rose hushed them rather harshly through her teeth, lifting her finger to her lips for further dramatics. “Shhhhh. Shhhh. Shhh. Shhh.”

“What?” Nine rushed out, his whole body tensed in alarm. A quick glance toward his younger self, and he noted that he has a very similar mindset. “Whatever it is, Rose. You’ve got two of us here....”

“Yeah,” she ground out with quiet urgency. “And both of you agreein’ and all, too.” She sucked in a breath. “The Reapers will be here soon...”

Both Time Lords immediately slumped. Six actually issued a moan. “Really?”

Nine shook his head. Although he did see the humour in it, he didn’t exactly like being teased. “So you know,” he drawled out. reapers cleanse a broken fixed point... not your basic ...” he sighed deeply. “paradoxical anomaly.”

Six shook his head. “Not quite a paradoxical anomaly, really.”

“It might be,” Nine said with a shrug. “Or the beginning of a life of agreeing with my other selves from this point forward.” He looked his younger self up and down, then shook his head. “Nah. Can’t see that happening, either. Paradoxical anomaly that, and you won’t convince me otherwise.”

“Well I could with a textbook from the academy on such matters,” Six argued. “I am quite certain we have a book in the library that will settle this once and for all.”

Rose chuckled. “You are both really quite adorable, you know that?”

They both looked immediately offended by that.

“In all my lives, I have never been called something so completely ....”Six drew in a horrified breath. “So completely inaccurate a description. Why my dear girl, I must express that I take offence to that. Adorable. Really?”

She sighed and shook her head slowly. “Can’t take a compliment, can you?”

“If one was to oblige me with a compliment, then I might be inclined to say thank you....”

“Then preen like a peacock,” Nine said with a smirk. “Dressed for it and all.”

“Better than being attired as a crow,” he scoffed.

Rose shook her head and pressed her hands into the console’s edge. “Both of you.... I dunno.” She looked to Nine. “Right. So, tell me how to talk to her to ask her to show you where my Doctor is.”

“Just ask her: TARDIS, please tell the Doctor how to find my Doctor,” Nine answered with a shrug. “She seems to listen to you well enough for you not to be fancy about it.”

“Really?” She asked with wide eyes. “That’s it?”

“I’m guessing so.”

“And you can’t ask her the same thing?”

He gestured to the monitor. “Clearly not as she hasn’t offered up the information as yet, despite our ongoing conversation about it.”

She bit at her lips and nodded. “Okay then.” She smiled and looked up to the ceiling.

“Hello darling,” she cooed with a smile. “Would you be a dear and tell this old boy how he can find the even older version of him that I’m looking for?”

She looked to Nine with a cheeky grin. “Like that?”

The monitor lit up to life, filled with swirling circular images that rotated and shifted around the screen. Both men moved quickly to decipher the data.

“Oh,” Nine breathed out. “Not too far from here at all ... linearly speaking, of course.”

“Really?” Rose rushed out with an eager smile and skip toward them.

Six looked up to Nine. “Quite eager to leave the two of us behind, isn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Nine intoned. “Kind’ve kills the ego a little, doesn’t it?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “He’s you remember. Not like I’m rushing off to another bloke.”

The men shared a look. “Using our own logic against us,” Six remarked. “Touché.”

Nine shrugged. “Touché indeed.” He let out a short breath and turned to his younger self. “Don’t really need you for this bit, do I?”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t suppose you do.”

“Then it might be best for you to head off then.”

“Looks like it.”

“I’d like to say it was a pleasure,” he replied. “But I don’t want to lie to you.”

“That would be a first.”

Nine have him a grin. “So, off you go, then. Bye bye, adios, salut...”

Rose’s eyes widened. “Just like that?” She scoffed with genuine surprise. “Hello, goodbye?”

They both looked at her with brows high. “Do we require ceremony?” Nine queried.

“Well, no. But ...”

“Then I don’t see the issue,” Nine said with a smile.

“Perhaps because you’re the one who gets to spend a little more time with her,” Six remarked with an exaggerated sigh. He smiled and walked toward Rose, tenderly taking her hand in his. He leaned forward and pressed his lips against her knuckles. He remained in that light stoop and lifted his eyes to hers. “I must remark that it has been an absolute pleasure to meet you, my dear. And until I am fortunate to meet you again...”

“You‘ll forget about this meeting,” Nine interrupted with warning. At his younger self’s sudden rise to his full height, he held up his hand. “Got no choice in it. I don’t remember this little adventure of ours, which means you can’t, either.”

“Well that is disappointing,” he huffed quietly. “Very disappointing indeed, but understandable, I suppose.” He looked to Rose with an expression akin to longing. “Well. Until we meet again, my dear. Do take care. I look forward to the circumstances that bring us together again.”

“Which won’t happen if you keep standin’ around yakking about it,” Nine said with a huff. He gestured to the door. “So off you go. Back into whatever technicoloured nightmare you fell in from.”

Six sighed and looked to Rose. “And this was the one you first encountered? I am surprised you stuck around.”

She rolled up to her toes and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “See you later, Doctor. It’s been ... fun.”

“I am sure,” he said with a wink. He then released her hand and slid his hands into his trouser pockets. “And without further ado. I bid you both farewell. My best to the future.”

Rose watched Six walk out of the TARDIS with a slight sense of disappointment. She wasn’t joking around (much) when she called him adorable. She kind’ve felt that he was.

She felt the Doctor move in at her side and tilted her head upward to look up at him. “Almost anticlimactic,” she admitted. “All that rushing around, taking down evil cassowary mutants, and ... and now.”

“Now I take you to the version of me who is quite likely missing you desperately.” He gave her a smile. “And if you consider that anticlimactic ... or that I am unable to ...”

She covered his mouth in her hand. “Very able to, thank you,” She said with rapidly pinking cheeks and an awkward laugh. “Don’t you mind on that.”

He nodded his head. “That’s...”. He cleared his throat. “That’s very good to know.” He lifted his hand to gesture toward the console. There was a light forward tilt in his body that was an invitation for her to step up ahead of him. “Shall we?”

Rose stared at him a moment, allowing her eyes to trail over his face slowly. Mapping it into her memory forever. She tipped her head to one side as she recalled the promise she made inside her head while they were prepping to fight the cassowary army.

...she was going to snog him out of his boots.

He saw the shift in her eyes, the upward tip of her smile, and narrowed his eyes curiously at her. “Rose? Shall we?”

“Oh yes,” she purred deeply as she stepped toward him and pressed her hands into his chest. “We shall.”

He swallowed thickly as the cheeky glimmer in her eyes. He said her name quietly when her hands shifted up to his shoulders. His hands automatically went to her waist. “What are you doing?”

“Having no regrets at all,” she whispered as she lifted to her toes and brought her mouth to his. “Because if I don’t do this now, I’ll regret it.”

Her arms snapped around his neck and she pressed her lips hard to his.

Rose had hoped that her first real connection with the Doctor would be as mind blowing and toe curling as it always has been. She expected him snap his arms around her tightly, dip his head a little further, and part his lips for her to invite her in as deeply as she wanted to.

Unfortunately, however, while this Doctor’s hold was gentle and tender, he seemed reluctant to let it move beyond a subdued press of lips against lips.

He pulled away first and looked down at her with a warm smile. “That was lovely,” he said softly. “Now how about we get you home, yeah?”

“Okay,” she agreed softly with a hook of her hair behind her ear as she watched him walk away. “Sure.”

When the Doctor walked back across to the console and started his routine of twisting dials and flipping switches, Rose automatically wrapped her arms around a coral strut. She wasn’t entirely sure why just yet ... takeoffs weren’t always so bad ... but something about the hum that filled her arms gave her just that little bit of comfort....

...particularly after experiencing a kiss with him that seemed to lack a great deal of the enthusiasm and hunger that she would get from the man who wore pinstripes.

Part of her understood the way that he held himself back from her - after all he barely knew her in his current timeline - but the lonely wife within her refused to accept that reasoning. Her Doctor has always confidently stated that no matter his incarnation he’d be accepting of her affections .... 

.... should she ever have the opportunity to meet another one of him.

Obviously, he meant only the faces that he might wear in the future rather than in the past. Might’ve been nice for him to make that clarification before she tried the snog on her first Doctor.

Save her the red face and all that.

The Doctor looked around the green glowing rotor column to take a glance at her. His head tilted just slightly to see her so deeply in thought. “Penny for ‘em?” He asked with a smile.

Her eyes lifted to his and she forced a smile at him. “I’d be charging you too much,” she replied.

He hummed with doubt about that. Rather than press it, though, he gave a pair of hard slaps to the side of the rotor column. His eyes lifted with a smile. “She’s an old girl, this one, but she’s a clever one. She’ll have us landing next to her future self in no time.” His eyes then fell to hers. “And you’ll get that snog you’re looking for.”

She nodded her head slowly. “Yeah.”

His eyes shifted toward unreadable, but his expression fell to display cautious question. “Unless you don’t want to go...?”

“Of course I do!” She averred quickly, almost with panic. “It’s the only place I’ve wanted to be for five years!”

“Well then.” He puckered out his lips and kissed the air in thought. “Now, I admit that I’ve spent far too long away from humans...”. He thought about that. “...about four hundred years if I remember right.”

“And you usually do...”

“I always do,” he chided lightly with a point of his finger toward her. “Now. Granted, it’s been a while, but I do recall that when a human is excited about something they tend to be more ...”. He gestured up and down. “More exuberant than this.”

“Need me to cartwheel around the console?” She asked with a lift in her brows.

His eyes lit up. “Oh can you? That would be fantastic.”

That made her smile. “No one needs to see something like that...”

“Bronze medalist in the junior under 8’s, right?”

  
She opened her mouth to retort, but quickly slammed her lips shut again. Of course, he’d remember a flippant line she’d carelessly thrown out when she needed to convince herself she could do what needed to be done to save his denim-covered butt.

“That was a long time ago,” Doctor. “I haven’t cartwheeled in years.”

“Shame,” he said with a shrug. “They’re rather interesting things, cartwheels.”

“Then you do one,” she challenged.

“Yeah, let’s not and just say that we did,” he drawled as he walked across the grating toward her. He stopped just in front and folded his arms across his chest, tucking his thumbs underneath his lapel. “So, what’s wrong, then? Why the gloomy face?”

“I’m not gloomy,” she sang out.

“Then what? You’re not cartwheeling and squealing excitedly like one of your lot does when things are going their way.”

“By your lot I really hope you’re not saying ....”

“Human,” he huffed. “You humans do tend to make sounds when you’re excited.” His eyes narrowed. “You, if anything, seem disappointed.”

She drew in a breath. She didn’t deny it... she simply remained quiet.

The taut hold of his shoulders relaxed just slightly to give him a light slouch. “You’re disappointed that our kiss wasn’t quite as ...” He cleared his throat. “As passionate as you expected it to be.”

She lifted her eyes to his and just tipped her shoulder upward in a minuscule shrug of agreement.

He unfolded one arm to rub lightly at his nose. “Don’t take it the wrong way ,” he offered. “It’s not like you aren’t lovely, nor have a telepathic pull to you to make you ... to make me want to....”

She gasped. “Oh, God. Don’t give me the _it's not you, it’s me_ speech. Please.”

“Even if it’s true?” He offered. “Which, in this case, it very much is.”

Her face creased with discomfort. “We going to be materialising any time soon?”

He looked over his shoulder toward the silent rotor column. “Materialised a few moments ago, actually.”

“Great!” She sang out. She wiped her palms on her thighs. “Guess that means I’m out of here, yeah? Now you can go back to - you know - travelling through time and space....”

“Not so fast,” he called out with a swoop of his hand to lightly capture her arm. “You’re not leaving like this.”

She glanced down at his hand then back up at him. “Really, Doctor. It’s okay. I understand.”

His head shook. “No, Rose. You really don’t.” He coaxed her to step toward him. “Don’t think that I am completely immune to you, because I assure you that I very much am not. “ He lifted his eyes over her head, drew in a breath, and looked back down at her. “You know who I am, and just what I’ve been through these past few hundred years. War. Death. Destruction ... genocide of my own people ... at _my_ hand.”

“I know,” she whispered sympathetically. “I do.”

“And you know that this silence in my head.” He drew in a breath and swallowed hard. “How quiet and lonely it is inside my mind since I lost my people.”

“Doctor ....”

He drew his fingertips down along the line of her jaw. “I got a whisper of your mind against mine, Rose. Back at the hospital. Your mind went to mine, and for less than a second, the silence was gone, and I felt your light.”

She drew in a breath but remained silent to let him finish.

His eyes were sad when they looked toward hers. “You have no idea how much I want that light of yours inside me. No idea at all.” He let his hand drop from her face. “And I know that if I let myself kiss you in the way I want to, then I’ll open myself up and welcome you in.”

“And that’s so bad?” She asked him softly.

“Yeah,” he answered with a nod in his head. “Because if I do that. If I let you in...”. He dropped his jaw to inhale his breath through an open mouth.

“Yes, Doctor?”

“I’ll never let you go again.” His eyes flicked to the doorway. “Timelines and _him_ be damned.” He looked back to her. “I’ll steal you away and never take you back.”

Rose threw both arms up and over his shoulders. She rolled up onto her toes and pulled him into a fierce embrace. He pressed her lips against his ear. “I’m waiting for you in London,” she promised him. “Waiting for you to come back and tell me that the TARDIS also travels in time....”. She exhaled. “Oh, what am I saying, just show up and open the doors, Doctor. I’ll come running to you, I promise.”

His arms tightened around her waist and he lifted her just slightly to pull her more tightly against him. “Promise me that,” he pleaded against her cheek. “Promise me that and I promise you that I’ll snog the life right out of you.”

She pulled back lightly, just enough to press the tip of her nose against his. There was a smile on her lips. “Future timelines be damned!”

“Damn them to the void,” he snarled as he lurched forward to claim her mouth with his.

Any reservations he had on the first kiss were definitely resolved this time around. His arms locked tightly around her and he hauled her up against him as firmly as he could. His knees dipped lightly and his face angled deeply as he parted his lips for her and invited her in as deeply as she wanted to venture.

Rose held nothing back herself as she mewled into his mouth and surged her mind forward. Without a single barrier in place to stop her, Rose’s mind filled his completely. There was little he could do to remain upright, and he stumbled backward against the coral strut behind him. He didn’t let her go, though. He held on tightly and sent himself inside her just as fiercely as she had him.

and Rassilon damn him ... this was love.

For the first time since silence claimed his mind, hell, since he joined the war 400 years ago, he felt complete. This was something he never wanted to let go of, and if it means snogging like this for the rest of his lives ... well ... he was quite prepared to do just that.

Hard banging on the front door of his TARDIS quickly ended that thought train. Incessant banging that knocked Rose further and further out of his mind with each hard strike of fiat against wood.

With a low growl he pulled himself out of the kiss and glared at the doorway. “Bugger off!” He yellled out, his arms still tightly around his prize. “I’m busy!”

An urgent voice in a smooth Estuary accent called through the wood. “Doctor. Open up. “

He growled and readied to warn the man off again, but he faltered when Rose gasped and began to pull away from him.

Realization dawned and he opened his arms to release her. “That’s me, I take it?”

Rose nodded. “Yeah. That’s you.” She licked at her lip and straightened out her top. “Might be best to let him in.”

He slumped and strode forward. If I must,” he growled. He stood at the door and let his elder self bang hard at least three more times before he finally opened the door. “What is with all this racket!” He barked out with annoyance.

Ten quickly ran inside the TARDIS, curled around the doors, then slammed them shut by walking backward against it. He gasped out panted breaths and swallowed Over a dried tongue.

“Good thing you showed up when you did,” he panted. “Those things out there. They’re unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Welllll. Not completely unlike _anything_. Seen something similar on Earth. Big and ugly and very dangerous. Cassowaries, they call them.” He drew in a breath. “But they’re birds, just birds... these things.”

Ten shook his head. “Great big black things of death and destruction. Half human, half cassowary if you ask me.”

Nine dropped his head into his forehead. “Ahhh. Yes.”

“And they just appeared out of nowhere. If it wasn’t for you showing up when you did, they’d have torn me apart.”

Rose let out a loud laugh from the coral strut. “Oh. Doctor. Of all the places for them to end up....”

Nine shook his head. “Let’s not talk about it. Please.”

Ten pushed himself off the doors, his eyes bright, wide, and hopeful at the tickle in the back of his mind and the vision that stood just off to the side of the grating. His voice wavered just slightly.

“Rose?”

~~END~~

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own nor create the characters of Doctor Who or Murdoch Mysteries... I am merely playing with them a little.


End file.
